Single crystals of anhydrous dimercury(I) monofluorophosphate(V), Hg
2PO
3F (
1), were obtained by cooling dilutedaqueous Hg
2(NO
3)
2 and (NH
4)
2PO
3F solutions from 85
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C to room temperature. Compound
1 crystallizes with eightformula units in the orthorhombic space group
Ibam (No. 72) and lattice parameters
a = 9.406(2) Å,
b = 12.145(3) Å,
c = 8.567(2) Å. It adopts a new structure type even though a topological relation with dimercury(I) sulfate,Hg
2SO
4, is established. The crystal structure of
1 (
R(
F2 > 2
![](/images/gifchars/sigma.gif)
(
F2) = 0.0353) exhibits Hg
22+ dumbbells and discretePO
3F
2- anions as single building units which are organized in a layered assembly parallel to (100). The symmetricHg
22+ dumbbell shows a typical Hg-Hg distance of 2.5051(9) Å, and for each Hg atom, three Hg-O distances arefound, ranging from 2.327(6) to 2.476(5) Å. No interactions between Hg and F atoms are realized. The latter isexclusively bonded to the phosphorus atom at a distance
d(P-F) = 1.568(8) Å which is considerably longer thanthe P-O distances with a mean of 1.515 Å. Compound
1 was further characterized by vibrational spectroscopy(Raman and IR) in the spectral range between 4000 and 50 cm
-1, thermal analysis (TG, DSC) up to 650
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C whichrevealed Hg
2(P
2O
7) and Hg
3(PO
4)
2 as thermal decomposition products, and
19F and
31P solid-state NMR spectroscopy.The value for the P-F coupling constant in
1 is
JPF = -1072 Hz at 20
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C. The absolute sign of
JPF is negative.