Suboxide

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Suboxides are intermediates along the pathway that forms the normal oxide. Suboxides are sometimes visible when certain metals are exposed to small amounts of O2: 22 Cs + 3 O2 2 Cs11O3 4 Cs11O3 + 5 O2 22 Cs2O Several suboxides of caesium and rubidium have been characterized by X-ray crystallography. As of 1997, the inventory includes the following Rb9O2, Rb6O, Cs11O3, Cs4O, Cs7O, Cs11O3Rb, Cs11O3Rb2, and Cs11O3Rb3. They are generally colored compounds indicating a degree of electron delocalisation. Cs7O, has a unit cell containing a Cs10O3 cluster and 10 Cs atoms. The cluster can be visualised as being composed of three face-sharing octahedra. In the picture below the caesium atoms are represented by the big balls and the oxygen by the small. The Cs-Cs distance in the cluster is 376 pm, which is less than the Cs-Cs distance in the metal of 576 pm. Rb9O2 and Rb6O both contain the Rb9O2 cluster, which can be visualised as two face-sharing octahedra.