Concepts in transition metal chemistry

This book has been written both as a text for the Open University course S347Metals and life, and also to serve as a stand-alone volume. A second book Metals and life, which covers metals in medicine and in plant and animal physiology, complements it.  

This book comprises six chapters: an introduction to the 3d block and features of transition-metal chemistry, making much use of the accompanying DVD; consideration of the stability of particular oxidation states, particularly +2 and +3, linked with reduction potentials; coordination theory, including isomerism (geometric, optical, linkage); stability of complexes, including stability constants and HSAB theory; the application of crystal field theory to complexes, covering electronic spectra (including the influence of the spectrochemical series); and magnetism, including the Jahn-Teller effect; and finally MO theory, which introduces p bonding (with ligands like CO, CN^-, N₂ and NO) as well as the 18-electron rule. Quite apart from the DVD, there is effective use of colour illustrations, showing - for example - the effect on colour of stepwise replacement of water in Ni( II ) complexes by 1,2-diaminoethane. The book is generally accurate, but I'd query the species [Fe(SCN)₄]^- on page 121.