LIGAND

Ligand

In coordination chemistry, a ligand is an ion or molecule that binds to a central metal atom to form a coordination complex. The bonding between metal and ligand generally involves formal donation of one or more of the ligand's electron pairs. The nature of metal-ligand bonding can range from covalent to ionic. Furthermore, the metal-ligand bond order can range from one to three. Ligands are viewed as Lewis bases, although rare cases are known to involve Lewis acidic "ligand."

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ligand

Noun

  1. An ion, molecule, or functional group that binds to another chemical entity to form a larger complex.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: ligand
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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