Structure
Its structure adopts the rhenium trioxide motif, featuring distorted AlF6 octahedra. Each fluoride is connected to two Al centers. Because of it is a 3-dimensional polymer, AlF3 has a higher melting point. In contrast, the other trihalides of aluminium, AlCl3, AlBr3, and AlI3, which are either molecular or 1-dimensional polymers, have low melting points and evaporate readily to give dimers. In the gas phase, at ca. 1000 °C, aluminium fluoride exists as trigonal molecules of D3h symmetry. The Al-F bond lengths of this gaseous molecule are 163 pm.
Read more about this topic: Aluminium Fluoride
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“A structure becomes architectural, and not sculptural, when its elements no longer have their justification in nature.”
—Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918)
“In the extent and proper structure of the Union, therefore, we behold a republican remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“Agnosticism is a perfectly respectable and tenable philosophical position; it is not dogmatic and makes no pronouncements about the ultimate truths of the universe. It remains open to evidence and persuasion; lacking faith, it nevertheless does not deride faith. Atheism, on the other hand, is as unyielding and dogmatic about religious belief as true believers are about heathens. It tries to use reason to demolish a structure that is not built upon reason.”
—Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986)