Undergraduate help - Thermodynamics of ionic solids.

Hi,

I'm a first year chemistry undergrad, and I just can't get my head around most of my inorganic chemistry course. At the moment I'm really struggling with the thermodynamics of ionic solids. :confused:

I understand the ionic model and its shortfalls, the Kapustinskii and Born-Lande equations - but I don't know how to explain the relative stabilities of the Group I and Group II hydrides and carbonates (both in qualitative and quantative terms (using Kapustinskii)).

Can anyone help? Or does anyone know of any good websites for undergrad inorganic chemistry notes?

Thanks. :smile:

Reply 1

Edamame

Tip: Go to the library! You might actually find something useful there. The web cannot solve everything unfortunately.

Reply 2

treehugginghippy

Thanks for the helpful reply :rolleyes:

Just to clarify - I've read the relevant sections in:

Shriver and Atkins,
Phillip and Williams,
Dasent,
Housecroft,
Johnson,
and the Oxford primer: Foundations of Inorganic Chemistry

But I'm still having problems understanding it. I'm not being lazy and simply asking for help as soon as I can't do something - I've done the reading, found extra materials, but am still struggling.

In short, if you can't/don't want to help - don't be a smart-ass. If there are any books that you could recommend for this, or as a good inorganic chemistry book in general, I'd be more than grateful for any suggestions. :biggrin:

Reply 3

charco

Study Forum Helper

What exactly is the problem? Stability is usually a function of the Gibbs Free Energy difference between start and end points. Stability of an ionic lattice is presumably the same between the energy of the lattice wrt the individual gaseous ions

Reply 4

treehugginghippy

I have to be able to explain the stabilities in terms of the Kapustinskii equation.

The main problem for me is understanding the relative stabilities of the Gp I and II hydrides, carbonates, and nitrates/nitrides. I understand why the stability of ions containing small anions decreases down the group, but not why it increases down the group for large anions. I also don't understand the exception for Mg -> Ca.

I'm also not sure how to use enthalpy cycles in combination with the Kapustinskii equation to prove that one thing is more stable than another. :frown: