Osmium pentachloride, a new binary chloride of osmium, has been prepared by the reaction of osmium hexafluoride with excess boron trichloride below room temperature. The pentachloride is isomorphous with rhenium pentachloride and has been characterized by X-ray methods, by infrared and UV-visible spectroscopy, and by magnetic and other physical procedures. Some reactions of the pentachloride are also reported in this paper. Reaction of osmium hexafluoride with carbon tetrachloride, known to be less effective than boron trichloride in halogen-exchange reactions, produces a nonstoichiometric product which probably contains several mixed halides of osmium.
IntroductionSeveral general procedures have been used to prepare binary halides of the second-and third-row transition metals, involving halogenation at temperatures in the range 200-700 OC of the respective metal or, in the case of chlorides, bromides, and iodides, the metal oxide, using either free halogen or a particular halogenating agent.' These conditions are unsatisfactory for the preparation of higher halides that are thermally unstable at or about room temperature, unless sophisticated quenching procedures are employed, as in the preparation of the thermally unstable hexafluorides of ruthenium, rhodium, andMany chlorides, bromides, and iodides of metals in high oxidation states that are difficult to prepare by direct halogenation have been prepared by halogen exchange of the highest oxidation state fluoride with an appropriate reagent at room temperature or below, e.g., uranium hexachloride3 and rhenium he~achloride.~ Similarly, halogen-exchange procedures have been used to prepare binary and oxide bromides and iodides of many non-transition elements from their re-