The technique of hydrogen/deuterium isotopic substitution has been used to extract detailed information concerning the solvent structure in pure ammonia and metallic lithium-ammonia solutions. In pure ammonia we find evidence for approximately 2.0 hydrogen bonds around each central nitrogen atom, with an average N-H distance of 2.4 A. On addition of alkali metal, we observe directly significant disruption of this hydrogen bonding. At 8 mol % metal there remains only around 0.7 hydrogen bond per nitrogen atom. This value decreases to 0.0 for the saturated solution of 21 mol % metal, as all ammonia molecules have then become incorporated into the tetrahedral first solvation spheres of the lithium cations. In conjunction with a classical three-dimensional computer modeling technique, we are now able to identify a well-defined second cationic solvation shell. In this secondary shell the nitrogen atoms tend to reside above the faces and edges of the primary tetrahedral shell. Furthermore, the computer-generated models reveal that on addition of alkali metal the solvent molecules form voids of approximate radius 2.5-3.0 A. Our data therefore provide new insight into the structure of the polaronic cavities and tunnels, which have been theoretically predicted for lithium-ammonia solutions.

Here, we measure the solvation structure of fulleride C605- anions in potassium ammonia solution using neutron diffraction. We find a very strong solvation structure consisting of two shells of ammonia densely packed around the anion. The system's structure is driven by the propensity of ammonia molecules to direct one of their hydrogen bonds to the center of the anion while retaining axial hydrogen bonding within the shells. This permits high concentrations of solvent separated fulleride anions.

The total structure factors of the molten trivalent metal halides MX3, where M3+ denotes La3+ or Ce3+ and X- denotes C1-, Br- or I-, have been measured by using neutron diffraction. Difference function methods were then applied on assuming that the LaX3 and CeX3 melts for a given halide ion are isomorphic. The results which follow from this assumption show that the first sharp diffraction peak in the measured total structure factors arises from cation correlations and its movement to lower scattering vector values with increasing anion size is consistent with an enhanced separation in real space of cation centred polyhedra. On melting the MX3 salts exhibit a decrease in the coordination number of both the cations and anions. In the liquid state the M-X coordination environment is asymmetric with M-Cl, M-Br and M-I nearest-neighbour distances of 2.93(2) Å, 3.01(2) Å, 3.18(2) Å and M-Cl, M-Br and M-I coordination numbers of 8.2(2), 7.4(2), 6.7(2) respectively. The Cl-Cl, Br-Br and I-I nearest-neighbour distances are 3.58(3) Å, 3.76(3) Å, 4.13(2) Å respectively and there is a significant penetration of the X-X partial pair distribution function into the first peak of the M-X partial pair distribution function for all three anions. The Cl-Cl, Br-Br and I-I coordination numbers are 9.2(2), 8.7(2) and 8.2(2) respectively if the M-M coordination number is two.