Site distortions created by the stereoactive lone pair of Tin(II) in highly symmetric structures Available to Purchase

Several fluoride compounds containing divalent tin that have a fluorite (CaF₂-type) unit cell have been prepared and studied. Some are stoichiometric compounds while others are solid solutions. The cubic symmetry of the unit-cell (no lattice distortion and no superstructure) and the unique metal ion site of the fluorite structure make it that tin and the other metal have to be disordered on the normal metal site of the fluorite unit-cell. However, that site has the m3m-O_h point symmetry, and the metal ion is located in the center of a cube having fluoride ions in all its corners. Therefore, the same coordination should apply to tin. However, tin(II) possesses a non-bonding pair of electrons called a “lone pair”, and in order for tin(II) to have a cubic symmetry, its lone pair has to be located on the unhybridized 5s orbital, that is spherical and thus does not distort the coordination. In such a case, the lone pair is said to be “non-stereoactive”. This would make tin present in the form of the Sn²⁺ stannous ion, and therefore Sn−F bonding must be ionic. However, tin(II) fluorides are known to be always covalent with a hybridized lone pair on tin, which has therefore a reduced coordination number and therefore a highly distorted polyhedron of coordination. Such a hybridized lone pair is said to be “stereoactive”. Tin−119 Mössbauer spectroscopy was used to probe the bonding type and it showed that bonding is covalent, the lone pair is hybridized and the tin coordination is dramatically distorted. A model based on a double disorder was made that accounts for the apparent contradiction between the crystallographic and the Mössbauer results.