Spectrochemical Series

These questions deal in part with concepts presented in today's lecture and assigned readings.

1. In 5 sentences or less talk about the ordering of the spectrochemical series in terms of orbital interactions (sigma and pi) between the ligands and the metal.
2. Sketch 3 MO mixing diagrams of the metal d orbitals and ligand orbitals for O_h ML₆ complexes with L = pi donor, sigma only, and pi acceptor to illustrate part of your explanation in the previous question.
3. Why is there a blue shift when en is added to a solution of aqueous nickel(II) ion?
4. Why is Mo(CO)₆ colorless?
5. Would you expect a red or blue shift upon theoretical removal of two ligands from octahedral ML₆ to form tetrahedral ML₄?

The above exercises are intended to help you prepare for our final exam. They do not need to be handed in and will not be graded.

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