Some studies in the chemistry of mercury and lithium

The enhanced stability of perfluoroaromatic lithium species (compared with their hydrogen analogues) has been used to study their thermal degradation reactions and the reactions of the unstable intermediates thus produced, as effectively only one thermal reaction path exists. Attempts have been made to test existing hypotheses, and also to rationalise results by theoretical MO calculations. Especial emphasis has been put on 80mBr radio-labelling studies. A similar enhancement of stability for the perfluoro organo-mercurials makes some of them ideal substrates for solid state kinetic studies and a wide range of organo-mercury complexes has been studies by thermal and other techniques. Partly by way of comparison and partly as an extension of the work X-ray structure determinations have been carried out on the hydrogen analogue compounds as well as the fluoro-compounds.