What makes a ligand strong

Learn more. What makes a ligand stronger than another? Ask Question. Asked 7 years, 3 months ago. Active 7 years, 3 months ago. Viewed 17k times.

What determines the strength of a ligand? Improve this question. Plastic Astronaut. Plastic Astronaut Plastic Astronaut 3 3 gold badges 4 4 silver badges 10 10 bronze badges.

The metal's electrons can enter the ligand's antibonding orbitals. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Dissenter Dissenter Sign up or log in Sign up using Google. Strong and weak field ligands. This energy difference is measured in the spectral transition between these levels, which often lies in the visible part of the spectrum and is responsible for the colors of complexes with partially filled d-orbitals.

Ligands that produce a large splitting are called strong field ligands, and those that produce a small splitting are called weak field ligands. Referring to the molecular orbital diagram above, we see that the splitting between d-electron levels reflects the antibonding interaction between the e g metal orbitals and the ligands. Thus, we expect ligand field strength to correlate with metal-ligand orbital overlap.

Ligands that bind through very electronegative atoms such as O and halogens are thus expected to be weak field , and ligands that bind through C or P are typically strong field. Ligands that bind through N are intermediate in strength.

Another way to put this is that hard bases tend to be weak field ligands and soft bases are strong field ligands. Water is a weak field ligand. The electronegative O atom is strongly electron-withdrawing, so there is poor orbital overlap between the electron pair on O and a metal d-orbital. The more electropositive C atom in the strong field ligand CN - allows better orbital overlap and sharing of the electron pair. Note that CN - typically coordinates metal ions through the C atom rather than the N atom.

EDTA is used most commonly as salts and in a dry form. EDTA is a great chelating agent, allowing multiple bindings in a coordination complex. What makes a ligand strong or weak? Category: science chemistry. Ligands that cause a transition metal to have a small crystal field splitting, which leads to high spin, are called weak -field ligands.

Ligands that produce a large crystal field splitting, which leads to low spin, are called strong field ligands. Is EDTA a strong ligand? Is water a weak field ligand? Is co High spin or low spin? Is octahedral high or low spin? Is c2o4 a strong or weak ligand? Is tetrahedral always high spin? What is ligand field strength? Is no3 a ligand? Which is strongest ligand? What are ligands in chemistry? Why tetrahedral complexes are always high spin?

What do you mean by coordination number? Why is CO is stronger ligand than CL? Why are low spin tetrahedral complexes rare? Why is h2o stronger than ligand Oh? What are the types of ligands? Types of Ligands. Unidentate ligands: Ligands with only one donor atom, e.