Xenon tertaflouride?

Question

Does anyone know anything about why this forms (xenon being a noble gas etc). Only asking since i've just started transition metal chemistry which goes into ligands. Exclude stuff about its shape and coordination geometry (octahedral and square planar etc) unless where relevant. Thanks.

Answer 1

For the longest time, the noble gases are also called inert gases because they were thought NOT to react at all. Thus, they are INERT.

But some brilliant chemists thought "outside of the box" and dared to react Xenon, an inert gas with the most oxidizing agent, Flourine gas. And sure enough, under, not so "normal conditions" of pressure and other special reaction conditions, the two elements reacted to form XeF4, a square planar molecule.

The product is formed because Xenon tetraflouride,XeF4 is stable, meaning the product is favorably formed since its energy is lower than that of the individual reactants. To tie this in with coordination chemistry, Xe has a lot of d-orbitals to accomodate reaction with four flourines.

However, this reacts readily with water!! So, it is ok as long as you make the reaction in water-free environment and that you store it in a water-free container.