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Topic: About stability of methyl derivative of FeCl3  (Read 4944 times)

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Offline Winga

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About stability of methyl derivative of FeCl3
« on: October 13, 2006, 08:12:56 AM »
The question is that why the methyl derivative of FeCl3 is not isolable and explosively unstable where FeCl3 is a stable compound?

FeCl3 is stable because FeCl3 can be dimerized, right?

The methyl derivative should be Fe(CH3)3.
So, what happen to Fe(CH3)3?
« Last Edit: October 14, 2006, 02:20:33 AM by Winga »

Offline Winga

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Re: About stability of methyl derivative of FeCl3
« Reply #1 on: October 14, 2006, 02:16:21 AM »
FeCH3 can undergo 1,1-reductive elimination to give ethane gas that is explosive.

But, I still don't know why it cannot isolable.

Offline woelen

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Re: About stability of methyl derivative of FeCl3
« Reply #2 on: October 15, 2006, 10:20:47 AM »
Ethane gas is not explosive, it is perfectly stable. It is flammable though.

I can imagine that Fe(CH3)3 could be stable, but a compound being stable does not mean that it really exists. There also must be a preparative route to the compound.

A nice example of such a thing is the salt KBrO4 (potassium perbromate). This in fact is a very stable salt and it is even quite inert. The very common salt KBrO3 is much more reactive. But, the preparation of this compound has eluded chemists till the end of the 1960's. This was, because all intermediates, leading to this compound were very unstable.
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