Mercury hydride is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is both thermodynamically and kinetically unstable at ambient temperature, and as such, little is known about its bulk properties. However, it known as a white, crystalline solid, which is kinetically stable at temperatures below, which was synthesised for the first time in 1951. Mercury hydride is the second simplest mercury hydride. Due to its instability, it has no practical industrial uses. However, in analytical chemistry, mercury hydride is fundamental to certain forms of spectrometric techniques used to determine mercury content. In addition, it is investigated for its effect on high sensitivity isotope-ratio mass spectrometry methods that involve mercury, such as MC-ICP-MS, when used to compare thallium to mercury.
Properties
Structure
In solid mercury hydride, the HgH2 molecules are connected by mercurophilic bonds. Trimers and a lesser proportion of dimers are detected in the vapour. Unlike solid zinc, and cadmium hydride, which are network solids, solid mercury hydride is a covalently bound molecular solid. This is due to relativistic effects, which also accounts for the relatively low decomposition temperature of -125 °C. The HgH2 molecule is linear and symmetric in the form H-Hg-H. The bond length is 1.646543 Å. The antisymmetric stretching frequency, ν3 of the bond is 1912.8 cm−1, 57.34473 THz for isotopes 202Hg and 1H. The energy needed to break the Hg-H bond in HgH2 is 70 kcal/mol. The second bond in the resulting HgH is much weaker only needing 8.6 kcal/mol to break. Reacting two hydrogen atoms releases 103.3 kcal/mol, and so HgH2 formation from hydrogen molecules and Hg gas is endothermic at 24.2 kcal/mol.
Biochemistry
Alireza Shayesteh et al conjectured that bacteria, containing the flavoprotein, mercuric reductase, such as Escherichia coli, can in theory reduce soluble mercury compounds to volatile HgH2, which should have a transient existence in nature.
Mercury hydride may be prepared by the reduction of mercury chloride. In this process, mercury chloride and a hydride salt equivalent react to produce mercury hydride according to the following equations, which depend on the stochiometry of the reaction: Variations of this method exits where mercury chloride is substituted for its heavier halide homologues.
Direct synthesis
Mercury hydride can also be generated by direct synthesis from the elements in the gas phase or in cryogenic inert gas martices: This requires excitation of the mercury atom to the 1P or 3P state, as atomic mercury in its ground-state does not insert into the dihydrogen bond. Excitation is accomplished by means of an ultraviolet-laser, or electric discharge. The initial yield is high; however, due to the product being in an excited state, a significant amount dissociates rapidly into mercury hydride, then back into the initial reagents: This is the preferred method for matrix isolation research. Besides mercury hydride, it also produces other mercury hydrides in lesser quantities, such as the mercury hydrides.
Reactions
Unpon treatment with a Lewis base, mercury hydride coverts to an adduct. Upon treatment with a standard acid, mercury hydride and its adducts convert either to a mercury salt or a mercuranyl derivative and elemental hydrogen. Oxidation of mercury hydride gives elemental mercury. Unless cooled below, mercury hydride decomposes to produce elemental mercury and hydrogen:
History
Mercury hydride was successfully synthesized and identified in 1951 by Egon Wiberg and Walter Henle, by the reaction of mercury iodide and lithium tetrahydroaluminate in a mixture of petroleum ether and tetrahydrofuran. In 1993 Legay-Sommaire announced HgH2 production in cryogenic argon and krypton matrices with a KrF laser. In 2004, solid HgH2 was definitively synthesized and consequentially analysed, by Xuefeng Wang and Lester Andrews, by direct matrix isolation reaction of excited mercury with molecular hydrogen. In 2005, gaseous HgH2 was synthesized by Alireza Shayesteh et al, by the direct gas-phase reaction of excited mercury with molecular hydrogen at standard temperature; and Xuefeng Wang and Lester Andrews determined the structure of solid mercury HgH2, to be a molecular solid.
