4 Metalorganic and Metalloidorganic Compounds
On account of the plethora of organometall(oid)ic compounds and the
ever contentious question of their assignment to organic chemistry on the
one hand or inorganic chemistry on the other, the development of a binding systematic nomenclature for this domain always was and still is
fraught with major difficulties and is thus far from being settled. All that
can be given here, therefore, is just a survey of current practice supplemented by sketches of a future scenario determined by emerging tendencies towards tighter systematization. Meanwhile it has become abundantly
clear that at least two naming variants will ultimately persist: one organic,
substitutive, and one inorganic, coordinative.
4.1
Element Hydride (Elementane) Names
The substitutive naming variant is customarily applicable in all cases
where weakly polar, molecular, i. e. non-aggregated compounds with (at
least formally) 2-center 2-electron bonds are concerned. On the basis of
the element hydride concept, according to which the names of these
fundamental structures containing only hydrogen and the respective
element are formed through combination of appropriatly modified "a"
terms from Tables 4, 20 with the ending ... ane, carbanes (hydrocarbons)
are thus closely associated with heteranes (element hydrides) in a way
that leaves little choice but to adopt the unifying collective term elementane.
Regrettably this simple and above all easily explicable treatment has so far been sanctioned by IUPAC only for hydrides of element groups 13 -17 (with the exception of
aluminum - thallium) (Table 14), although it can be applied in equally self-evident
manner to all other elements of the periodic table, e.g.: ,\6-wolframane (tungstane)
(WH6), ,\4-titanane (TiH4), ,\5-niobane (NbHs), ,\2-magnesane (MgHz) etc.; possibly
even: ,\7-ununseptane for [117] H7!
Organic derivatives of these fundamental hydrides are then to be named
as organylelementanes.
On account of the plethora of organometall(oid)ic compounds and the
ever contentious question of their assignment to organic chemistry on the
one hand or inorganic chemistry on the other, the development of a binding systematic nomenclature for this domain always was and still is
fraught with major difficulties and is thus far from being settled. All that
can be given here, therefore, is just a survey of current practice supplemented by sketches of a future scenario determined by emerging tendencies towards tighter systematization. Meanwhile it has become abundantly
clear that at least two naming variants will ultimately persist: one organic,
substitutive, and one inorganic, coordinative.
4.1
Element Hydride (Elementane) Names
The substitutive naming variant is customarily applicable in all cases
where weakly polar, molecular, i. e. non-aggregated compounds with (at
least formally) 2-center 2-electron bonds are concerned. On the basis of
the element hydride concept, according to which the names of these
fundamental structures containing only hydrogen and the respective
element are formed through combination of appropriatly modified "a"
terms from Tables 4, 20 with the ending ... ane, carbanes (hydrocarbons)
are thus closely associated with heteranes (element hydrides) in a way
that leaves little choice but to adopt the unifying collective term elementane.
Regrettably this simple and above all easily explicable treatment has so far been sanctioned by IUPAC only for hydrides of element groups 13 -17 (with the exception of
aluminum - thallium) (Table 14), although it can be applied in equally self-evident
manner to all other elements of the periodic table, e.g.: ,\6-wolframane (tungstane)
(WH6), ,\4-titanane (TiH4), ,\5-niobane (NbHs), ,\2-magnesane (MgHz) etc.; possibly
even: ,\7-ununseptane for [117] H7!
Organic derivatives of these fundamental hydrides are then to be named
as organylelementanes.