CHEMISTRY COMMUNITY

In Week 9 Wednesday's lecture, Dr. Lavelle put in his lectures

if ligand has a name with Di-, Tri-, Tetra-, or Polydentate then use prefixes
Bis-, Tris-, tetrakis-, pentakis-

but what does that mean?

What is an example of using a prefix like this?

Is there a table that we can use that states when/ how to name a coordination compound?

for example the ligand NH2CH2CH2NHCH2CH2NH2 is called diethylenetriamine and if there were two of them located in a cordination compound then it would be bisdiethylenetiramine in the naming

Another example is Na[Fe(OH2)_2(C2O4)_2].
The ligand C2O4^2- is oxalate, which is bidentate. Since we have two of these polydentate anions, we use bis- prefix to describe them in the full name (even though the name of the anion doesn't contain di-, tri-, etc.):
Sodium diaquabisoxalatoferrate(III)

What is a ligand and what is its signifigance?

A ligand is an ion or molecule that binds to a central metal atom to form a coordination complex.

When something is polydentrate it means that the electron lone pairs are found to be distributed among different atoms on a particular ligand rather than having the electron lone pairs on one atom, where it would not be polydentrate. Hope this helps