Identifying Polydentate Ligands

[Althea Zhao 1B]

How can you tell whether a ligand is polydentate?

[405268063]

As far as I understand, if the ligand binds at more than one site (meaning it donates more than 1 electron pair), it can be considered polydentate.

[Goyama_2A]

When determining whether or not a ligand is polydentate, you need to look at the location of lone pairs on the ligand and the shape of the ligand. If the lone pair locations are spread out between several atoms on a ligand, it is likely to be polydentate rather than when they are all located on one atom.

[805373590]

A polydentate ligand has prefixes that indicate the number of donor atoms and more than 2 lewis base sites, such as lone pair donating sites used to bond to a central atom or ion.

[kevinolvera1j]

typically, a polydentate will only a polyatomic sepcies since a single atom or ion would be too small to take more than one "bite"

[emma brinton_3B]

a ligand is polydentate is one that gives up more than 1 e-; however, i believe he wants us to be more specific and say bi-, tri-, and hexadentate.