The Chemistry And History Of Coordination Chemistry

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Coordination chemistry came about from the work of Alfred Werner, a Swiss chemist who examined different compounds made up of cobalt (III) Chloride and ammonia. When hydrochloric acid was added, Werner noticed that ammonia could not be removed completely. He then suggested that the ammonia must bind more tightly to the central cobalt ion. However, when aqueous silver nitrate was added, one of the products formed was solid silver chloride. The resulting amount of silver chloride was related to the number of ammonia molecules bounded to the cobalt (III) chloride. For example, when silver nitrate was added to CoCl3•6NH3, all three chlorides were converted to silver chloride. When silver nitrate was added to CoCl3•5NH3, only 2 of the 3 chlorides formed silver chloride. When CoCl3•4NH3 was treated with silver nitrate, only one of the three chlorides precipitated as silver chloride. The resulting observations gave out the formation of complex or coordination compounds. In the inner coordination sphere, which is also referred to as the first sphere, ligands are directly bound to the central metal. In the outer coordination sphere, sometimes called the second sphere, other ions are attached to the complex ion. The following table is a summary of Werner's observations:
INITIAL COMPOUND RESULTING COMPOUNDS UPON ADDING AgNO3
CoCl3•6NH3
[Co(NH3)6]3+(Cl-)3
CoCl3•5NH3 [Co(NH3)5Cl]2+(Cl-)2
CoCl3•4NH3 [Co(NH3)4Cl2]+(Cl-)
CoCl3•3NH3 [Co(NH3)3Cl3]
A coordination compound or complex is a formed when a ligand is attached to an acceptor by means of a lone pair of electrons (Rajbir Singh, 2002). Coordination compounds are formed between a metal ion and a molecule with one or more unshared electron pairs, called a ligand. According to (Geoaffrey A. L...

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...o living organisms. Metal complexes play a variety of important roles in biological systems. Many enzymes and the naturally occurring catalysts that regulate biological processes are metal complexes (metalloenzymes); for example, carboxypeptidase, is a hydrolytic enzyme that is important in digestion. It contains a zinc ion coordinated to several amino acid residues of the protein. Another enzyme known as catalase, which is an important catalyst for the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide, contains iron-porphyrin complexes. In both these cases, the coordinated metal ions are most probably the sites of catalytic activity. From the research above, a conclusion can be that coordination compounds affect almost all aspects of life, from organisms to daily life. This therefore means coordination compounds are very important and without them, life basically does not exists.

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