Sodium Phosphide - Uses

Uses

Sodium phosphide is a source of the highly reactive phosphide anion. The material is insoluble in all solvents but reacts as a slurry with acids and related electrophiles to give derivatives of the type PM₃:

Na₃P + 3 M+5 → M₃P (M = H, Me₃Si)

The trimethylsilyl derivative is volatile (b.p. 30-35 C @ 0.001 mm Hg) and soluble. It serves as a soluble equivalent to "P3-".

Indium phosphide, a semiconductor arises by treating in-situ generated "sodium phosphide" with indium(III) chloride in hot N,N’-dimethylformamide as solvent. In this process, the phosphide reagent is generated from sodium metal and white phosphorus, whereupon it immediately reacts with the indium salt:

3Na + P → Na₃P

Na₃P + InCl₃ → InP + 3NaCl

Sodium phosphide is also employed commercially as a catalyst in conjunction with zinc phosphide and aluminium phosphide for polymer production. When Na₃P is removed from the ternary catalyst polymerization of propylene and 4-methyl-1-pentene is not effective.