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:
“Man is more disposed to domination than freedom; and a structure of dominion not only gladdens the eye of the master who rears and protects it, but even its servants are uplifted by the thought that they are members of a whole, which rises high above the life and strength of single generations.”
—Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835)
“What is the most rigorous law of our being? Growth. No smallest atom of our moral, mental, or physical structure can stand still a year. It grows—it must grow; nothing can prevent it.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“When a house is tottering to its fall,
The strain lies heaviest on the weakest part,
One tiny crack throughout the structure spreads,
And its own weight soon brings it toppling down.”
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)