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Eddygp
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Favorite Non-metals (non-noble gases) Poll
Just to have a look at the interests of the mad scientists. Feel free to comment!
there may be bugs in gfind
[ˌɛdidʒiˈpiː] IPA pronunciation for my Username |
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AndersHoveland
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Chlorine, because it has a surprising wealth of obscure chemistry. The full chemistry of chlorine is seldom described and goes unappreciated. It is
far more than just chloride ions and elemental chlorine— Cl2O6, Cl2O7, ICl3, ClF5, for example. ClO2 and NCl3 also have some interesting complicated
chemistry/equilibrium depending on the pH and reactant ratios. Then there is the CuI catalysed Finkelstein reaction, in which the chlorine in
chloroalkanes can be substituted with another group.
But if you are asking me what my favorite polyatomic group is, then probably the nitro group. Nitroalkenes are useful for very complicated
Michael-type addition reactions, while nitroformates have much potential for energetic propellents.
[Edited on 28-4-2012 by AndersHoveland]
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barley81
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Iodine, dude. It smells nice, exhibits solvatochromism, and, like chlorine, has a lot of obscure chemistry as well. I like the purple vapor and the
pretty crystals too. Too bad it's expensive.
I like nitrogen as well. My computer science project is a website about nitrogen chemistry.
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Eddygp
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Paradoxically, oxygen and carbon (oh, damn, forgot to add hydrogen) are not quite 'voted'...
there may be bugs in gfind
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weiming1998
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It's hard to decide between fluorine and chlorine.
Fluorine has some unique and interesting chemistry, but a lot of its compounds are inert and don't react with anything.
Chlorine is less reactive, but contains a far wider range of reactions than fluorine.
Finally I decided chlorine.
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Eddygp
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Each non-metal has very interesting chemical properties, and there are many reactions and interesting compounds for each one. I prefer, however,
bromine.
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sargent1015
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What is life without carbon? Definitely my top choice!
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neptunium
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fluorine without a doubt! hardest toisolet , extremely active chemicaly, and can burst into flame with liquid hydrogen!
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Migratory
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Carbon. It's versatile (as everyone here knows) and the bond angles form nice tetrahedrons.
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Eddygp
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Actually, every element is amazing... now I look at each one, I find many interesting properties.
there may be bugs in gfind
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99chemicals
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Oxygen #16. You can't have fire or flame tests without it. It is very crucial for redox chemistry(blue bottle, thermite) It also is great for keeping
people alive.
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Hexavalent
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Struggled to decide, but eventually went with silicon because of the way it's revolutionised modern technology and society.
"Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." Winston Churchill
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turd
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That's a silly reason. First of all, bond angles do not form tetrahedra, it's the coordination partners that are located at the corners of tetrahedra.
With the exception of the electronegative (O, F) and the heavy (Te, Sb, I) elements, all of the listed elements form ubiquitous tetrahedral oxo-anions
or hydrogen anions (NH4+). And even metatellurates(VI) and antimonates(V) are stable and known, although rare.
In crystals O is of course often coordinated tetrahedrally. Think of oxides crystallizing in the zincblende structure type - per definition it doesn't
get more tetrahedral than that. Likewise F is tetrahedrally coordinated in fluorite, one of the most ubiquitous F-containing minerals.
Not to speak of silicon, for which non-tetrahedral coordination is quite uncommon (although it does exist).
Summary: Tetrahedra (regular and distorted) are very common and certainly not a unique feature of carbon.
Edit: Ooops - horrible typo.
[Edited on 6-5-2012 by turd]
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Eddygp
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Yes.
there may be bugs in gfind
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AndersHoveland
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Oxygen is also interesting in a way. The quantum singlet state of oxygen is extremely long lived (half-life 72 minutes), and this has chemistry
implications. Ground state oxygen is excited by light to the singlet state, that can then participate in an "ene" reaction with alkenes. This is why
olive oil will go rancid if exposed to air and light. This singlet state can also result in a faint red glow (observable in the dark) if calcium
hypochlorite is reacted with concentrated H2O2.
The difference in reactivity between diatomic oxygen and ozone is also rather striking.
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barley81
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And I also love ozone's blue color. See this <a
href="http://www.google.com/imgres?start=21&num=10&um=1&hl=en&safe=active&sig=fi2p5QgHwFHz0U84siaTZ7xPedI&biw=1280&bih=624
&tbm=isch&tbnid=7wm0abT2tvFYZM:&imgrefurl=http://labspace.open.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php%3Fid%3D443492&docid=AuQKApf2MSmvOM&imgu
rl=http://labspace.open.ac.uk/file.php/7042/s205_2_034i.jpg&w=188&h=286&ei=SKiyT-qWDubG6QGk7JDOCQ&zoom=1">picture.</a>
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AirCowPeaCock
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That <b>is</b> a beautiful picture of ozone! And further-more I learned that the carbonate ion also a resonance hybrid--though I had
never given much thought to it. I choose Phosphorus due to its reactivity and its allotropes with interesting variations in their properties.
BOLD
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woelen
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For me it is the element chlorine, because that element in particular has sparked my interest in chemistry when I was young. I read about colored
gases and for me at that time that was something unbelievable. Something like "air" which could have color, that was really fascinating for me. Since
then I tried to really see the colored "air" and I succeeded with chlorine fairly soon. At those days you still had 12.5% bleach in the supermarket
and a toiletcleaner which consisted of solid NaHSO4 with a very small amount of NaHCO3 mixed in. I first added this toilet cleaner to water and when
all bubbling stopped, then I added the concentrated solution (which was almost pure NaHSO4) to bleach and this process gave me copious amounts of
beautiful green Cl2 in liter-sized bottles and I have been experimenting a lot with it at the age of 13 or so. I burned things in Cl2, let it react
with hydrogen, tried how low a concentration was enough for killing a fly or a musquito.
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AndersHoveland
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Here is a better picture:
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Rogeryermaw
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phosphorus is a wicked bitch. it leaves some ugly scars. still my favorite.
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AndersHoveland
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For any who chose 'boron', the boranes have some very unusual chemistry, and there is also the B(CF3)4[-] anion, which is the least
coordinating of any anion known*. Not even SbF5 will interact with it.
*(perhaps with the exception of perfluorocarborane).
[Edited on 26-5-2012 by AndersHoveland]
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barley81
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From the summary of this paper:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/1521-3765%2820011...
it is very weakly coordinating. I cannot access the whole paper, but it's interesting. Are you sure that B(CF<sub>3</sub> <sub>4</sub><sup>-</sup> is the <b>absolute
least</b> coordinating? ([B[3,5-(CF3)2C6H3]4]− ) or "BARF" seems more mentioned than tetrakis(trifluoromethyl)borate for coordinating very
weakly. There is probably something I'm missing because I cannot see the whole paper.
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Eddygp
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I think barley is correct, because BARF can actually be also a weakly-coordinating one. I cannot however see the whole paper either.
there may be bugs in gfind
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Eddygp
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Many iodine and bromine lovers over here 
there may be bugs in gfind
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hyfalcon
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Carbon, can anyone say buckyballs? LOL All the way from the lowly lampblack up to diamond.
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