Cesium, Uh, Trifluoride?

Here's a very surprising idea that looks like it can be put to an experimental test. Mao-Sheng Miao (of UCSB and the Beijing Computational Sciences Research Center) has published a paper suggesting that under high-pressure conditions, some elements could show chemical bonding behavior involving their inner-shell electrons. Specific predictions include high-pressure forms of cesium fluoride - not just your plain old CsF, but CsF3 and CsF5, and man, do I feel odd writing down those formulae.

These have completely different geometries, and should be readily identifiable should they actually form. I'm thinking of this as cesium giving up its lone valence electron, and then you're left with a xenon-like arrangement. And xenon, as Neil Bartlett showed the world in 1962, can certainly go on to form fluorides. Throw in some pressure, and (perhaps) the deed it done in cesium's case. So I very much look forward to an experimental test of this idea, which I would imagine we'll see pretty shortly.

Source: In the Pipeline - November 21, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: Chemical News Source Type: blogs