[Alok]

Hi All,

I am new to this chemistry forum and looking forward to learn few chemistry stuffs. I really need to know that why Iron looses 2 or 3 electrons to form fe²⁺ and fe³⁺ ? Does this behaviour occur b'coz of
electons configurations or something else. I also like to request me to
direct me the link where I can find the fundamentals behiend the chemical equations?

Hare Krishna
Alok

[exec]

Electrons are found in orbitals, which are the regions where electrons are highly likely to be located. These orbitals are such as 1s, 2s, 2p, 3s, 3p, 4s, 3d, etc. shown with increasing energy level.

Iron has 26 electrons, thus it can be written as [Ar]3d⁶4s².

An orbital is considered stable when it is half-filled or fully filled. Thus for the case of 4s, the maximum number of electrons it can contain is 2, and thus the 4s is fully filled, as indicated by the superscript '2'.

Iron loses 2 electrons so that it would have an empty 4s orbital. However, there are still 6 electrons in the 3d orbital, while a 3d orbital is half-filled when there are 5 electrons, or is fully-filled when there are 10 electrons. Thus, Iron 2+ is less stable and it tends to lose an additional electron to form Iron 3+, which has a 3d orbital containing 5 electrons, making it a stable ions.

[enahs]

Fe²⁺ is better represented by not an empty 4s orbital and 6 of 10 3d orbitals, but as:
{Ar} 3d⁵4s¹

Not really important for this discussion, but it makes sense from a quantum mechanical level (and "proven" mathematically), as well as better explaining the geometry of most Fe²⁺ coordination compounds. Just throwing it out there for exec.

[Yggdrasil]

I'm pretty sure iron(II) has six d-electrons.  Take ferrocene as an example.  The iron is iron(II) and it has to have six electrons to make ferrocene be an 18-electron complex.

[enahs]

Much of Iron(II) chemistry is of the octahedral geometry. Take myoglobin for example, before oxygenation of the Iron(II) atom is in the high-spin state, which is why myoglobin is paramagnetic. When the oxygen molecule binds to the free site the octahedral geometry is completed. This forces the 6 valence electrons into the T_2g orbitals (3d_xy,3d_yz,3d_xz). I thought it was....never mind. I am an idiot! Seriously!

I guess sometimes you got to think about things before you say them. Doh. I shall not post about more advanced then my complete knowledge of advanced molecular orbital theories when I am not at home and have no access to my reference material.


I am a tard, move along. Nothing to see here.

[Alok]

Thanks a lot all of you.


hare krishna
Alok