Astatine
Astatine:
Astatine is radioactive and has a half life of 8.1 hours
Facts about Astatine:
- Astatine: Radioactive, unstable
- Fun fact about Astatine: Less than 1g is predicted to be in the Earth’s crust at any one time
- Chemical symbol: At
- Atomic number: 85
A crystal structure celebrating Astatine:
Palladium iodides are important in organic chemistry for example coupling 2 molecules together.
Facts about this structure:
- Formula: C18 H24 I2 N5 Pd +,I –,2(C H2 Cl2)
- Structure name: (1,1′-((4-(trimethylazaniumyl)phenyl)methylene)bis(3-methyl-2,3-dihydro-1H-imidazol-2-ylidene))-di-iodo-palladium iodide dichloromethane solvate
- Fun fact about the structure: The heavy metal palladium allows carbon to have less than its usual 4 covalent bonds
- CSD refcode: BUPHEB (What’s this?)
- Associated publication: Sai Puneet Desai, Moumita Mondal, Joyanta Choudhury, Organometallics, 2015, 34, 2731, DOI: 10.1021/om501163m
More about Astatine:
Astatine is the least reactive of the halogen elements and it is assumed to behave similarly to iodine. As it has such a short half-life no crystal structures of its compounds exist and very few compounds have been identified at all. Compounds of astatine with palladium are known and their relatives – palladium iodides – are incredible versatile reagents for organic synthesis. For instance this compound was developed to help modify aromatic compounds.
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Understand some of the terms and concepts used with our Frequently Asked Questions page here.
A 3D visualization showing Astatine in real crystal structures: