Optical basicity scales in protic solvents: water, hydrogen fluoride, ammonia and their mixtures.

In an inorganic material, a measure of the Lewis basicity of a solvent is commonly provided by the optical basicity, i.e. the ability of the solvent molecules to donate their electrons to an acidic species. This quantity is known to vary with the polarizability of the Lewis base. In protic solvents,...

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Main Authors: Salanne, M, Simon, C, Madden, P
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: 2011
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author Salanne, M
Simon, C
Madden, P
author_facet Salanne, M
Simon, C
Madden, P
author_sort Salanne, M
collection OXFORD
description In an inorganic material, a measure of the Lewis basicity of a solvent is commonly provided by the optical basicity, i.e. the ability of the solvent molecules to donate their electrons to an acidic species. This quantity is known to vary with the polarizability of the Lewis base. In protic solvents, the Lewis definition of basicity is barely used; it is replaced by the more purpose-built Brønsted-Lowry scale, and its generalized variant proposed by Hammett. In this study, individual molecular polarizabilities were computed from first-principles for a series of protic solvents: pure water, hydrogen fluoride, ammonia and their mixtures. From these calculations optical basicity scales were set up for each Lewis base. It was shown that these scales correlate with the Hammett acidity. It is therefore possible to build a common optical basicity scale, in which any material (protic solvents, inorganic materials) can unambiguously be classified.
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spelling oxford-uuid:3523b1f3-66bb-40aa-9602-bb40801b8b8c2022-03-26T13:30:15ZOptical basicity scales in protic solvents: water, hydrogen fluoride, ammonia and their mixtures.Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:3523b1f3-66bb-40aa-9602-bb40801b8b8cEnglishSymplectic Elements at Oxford2011Salanne, MSimon, CMadden, PIn an inorganic material, a measure of the Lewis basicity of a solvent is commonly provided by the optical basicity, i.e. the ability of the solvent molecules to donate their electrons to an acidic species. This quantity is known to vary with the polarizability of the Lewis base. In protic solvents, the Lewis definition of basicity is barely used; it is replaced by the more purpose-built Brønsted-Lowry scale, and its generalized variant proposed by Hammett. In this study, individual molecular polarizabilities were computed from first-principles for a series of protic solvents: pure water, hydrogen fluoride, ammonia and their mixtures. From these calculations optical basicity scales were set up for each Lewis base. It was shown that these scales correlate with the Hammett acidity. It is therefore possible to build a common optical basicity scale, in which any material (protic solvents, inorganic materials) can unambiguously be classified.
spellingShingle Salanne, M
Simon, C
Madden, P
Optical basicity scales in protic solvents: water, hydrogen fluoride, ammonia and their mixtures.
title Optical basicity scales in protic solvents: water, hydrogen fluoride, ammonia and their mixtures.
title_full Optical basicity scales in protic solvents: water, hydrogen fluoride, ammonia and their mixtures.
title_fullStr Optical basicity scales in protic solvents: water, hydrogen fluoride, ammonia and their mixtures.
title_full_unstemmed Optical basicity scales in protic solvents: water, hydrogen fluoride, ammonia and their mixtures.
title_short Optical basicity scales in protic solvents: water, hydrogen fluoride, ammonia and their mixtures.
title_sort optical basicity scales in protic solvents water hydrogen fluoride ammonia and their mixtures
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