Spinach contains a lot of iron but is not a good source of dietary iron because nearly all the iron is tied up in the oxalate complex [Fe(C₂O₄)₃]^3-.
(d) Draw the structure of [Fe(C₂O₄)₃]^3-. Is the complex chiral or achiral?

Question

Spinach contains a lot of iron but is not a good source of dietary iron because nearly all the iron is tied up in the oxalate complex [Fe(C₂O₄)₃]^3-.

(d) Draw the structure of [Fe(C₂O₄)₃]^3-. Is the complex chiral or achiral?

Accepted Answer

All right. Hi, everyone. So this question says that oxalates in food have been linked to a number of health issues including hypercalcemia and kidney stone formation. What is the structure of Co 20433 negative? Is it a Cairo or Cairo? So recall that the oxalate ion is C 204 negative two. And in this case, given the complex ion shown here in the question, we have three oxalate ions as ligands in this complex. Now recall that the oxalate ion happens to be buy dented, meaning that there are two donor atoms that make a connection or a bond with the central metal atom. In this case, Cobalt. So in this case, we have three B dentate ligands that will make a total of six bonds to the central Cobalt atom. This means that this is going to be an octahedral complex. So before we determine whether it is Cairo or a Cairo, let's go ahead and actually draw out this complex first starting off with the central Cobalt atom. So before I draw the ligands, I actually like to go ahead and draw the bonds to Cobalt first because the idea is to make sure that all bonds are being drawn along the xy and Z axis. So I like to draw out the bonds first just to make sure that they're going along the X, the Y and the Z axis, right. So after that, because we have three oxalate ions as ligands, all of them are going to connect to Cobalt via their oxygen atoms or two of them. So in this case, I'm going to draw oxygen at the end of every bond to Cobalt. So now I will connect two of the oxygens connecting to Cobalt with two carbons from oxalate and each carbon having a double bond to oxygen. So here I'm actually going to adjust one of the bonds here or two of them just to make sure they're not spaced so far apart, so I can connect them with the oxalate ion itself. So now here is the structure that I'm going to go ahead and complete by enclosing it in brackets and then adding the charge as a superscript. So in this case, I put three negative or negative three on the top right corner after adding brackets. So now let's talk about chirality and to do that, I'm going to scroll down to give myself some space. Now, recall it in octahedral complexes, chirality is observed when ligands are arranged asymmetrically and there is no plaintiff symmetry present in the compound. So there are two main things to look for for chirality specifically, right. A complex is considered to be Cairo when it has no plane of symmetry. And if we can draw a non superimposable mirror image, so what the term non superimposable mirror image means is that after drawing the mirror image of a given complex, the mirror images are considered non superimposable if they cannot re if they cannot be reoriented so that they appear identical or they cannot be reoriented so that you can stack one on top of the other. Hence the term non super imposible. So I'm going to go ahead and draw the mirror image by reflecting the complex that we already drew around or about this vertical plane that I've drawn in the center. I'll take my Cobalt on places that in the center. And then what I want to point out here is that in the original complex that we drew, there is an an oxalate ion or an oxalate ligand on the left side or pointing towards the left. So in the mirror image that exact ligand is going to be pointing towards the right or the left instead, sorry, just to clarify the original structure has this ligand group pointing towards the right. And here in the mirror image it's pointing towards the left. So based on that, I will go ahead and draw my remaining bonds and add the remaining oxalate ions. So I will do the same thing as the original structure and close the mirror image with brackets including the charge on the top right corner. So as you can see, we were able to go ahead and generate the mirror image of the complex. So because of the fact that this complex is three dimensional, there is no plane of symmetry and also the mirror image we drew a short while ago happens to be non superimposable. Therefore, the structure of the complex is shown on the left side of the screen and the complex is Cairo. So there you have it. So here is the structure of the complex and the complex is in fact, Cairo. So if you stuck around to the end of this video, thank you so very much for watching. And I hope you found this helpful.

Spinach contains a lot of iron but is not a good source of dietary iron because nearly all the iron is tied up in the oxalate complex [Fe(C₂O₄)₃]^3-.
(d) Draw the structure of [Fe(C₂O₄)₃]^3-. Is the complex chiral or achiral?

Verified Solution

Key Concepts

Coordination Complexes

Chirality

Oxalate Ligand

Spinach contains a lot of iron but is not a good source of dietary iron because nearly all the iron is tied up in the oxalate complex [Fe(C2O4)3]3-.(d) Draw the structure of [Fe(C2O4)3]3-. Is the complex chiral or achiral?

Verified Solution

Key Concepts

Coordination Complexes

Chirality

Oxalate Ligand

Spinach contains a lot of iron but is not a good source of dietary iron because nearly all the iron is tied up in the oxalate complex [Fe(C₂O₄)₃]^3-.
(d) Draw the structure of [Fe(C₂O₄)₃]^3-. Is the complex chiral or achiral?