About 60 molecular species composed of up to 10 mercury atoms and of oxygen atoms and/or of some other elements or groups (such as halogen, OH2, OH, H, alkali, NO3) have been investigated quantum chemically. Different density functional approaches and the ab initio SCF‐MP2 method were applied, comparing different basis sets and different atomic core sizes. It is important not to treat the Hg 5s, p, d as inactive core shells, and to use sufficiently many polarization functions.
The shape of the 〉O‐Hg‐Hg‐O〈 units is not favorable concerning the formation of lattices composed of HgI, O and OH only. Despite its bulkiness, the OHgHgO units can easily come into contact with each other and then disproportionate. This is prevented in the so‐called ternary M‐HgI oxides by the embedded oxometallate (oxoacidic) anions. Furthermore, the HgI and HgII oxide bond energies are less favorable towards the stability of HgI oxo compounds, as compared to Hg halidic or oxoacidic compounds. Both points are not promising concerning the search for HgI oxides/hydroxides, although the preparation of such compounds, including spacer groups, by topochemical reactions can still not be excluded.
So far, experimental efforts towards the synthesis of such a new class of compounds have only demonstrated that HgII is strictly preferred over HgI in the formation of solids of binary Hg‐O or ternary A‐Hg‐O composition (A = electropositive metal such as alkali, in contrast to M = transition or semi‐metal). This is so even if compounds containing ‘electron rich Hgδ— atoms’ (i.e. A‐Hg amalgams) are oxidized under mild conditions.