page_title: Chlorine
section_title: Chlorine oxides
hierarchical_section_title: Chlorine / Chemistry and compounds / Chlorine oxides
context_page_description: Chlorine is a chemical element with the symbol Cl and atomic number 17. The second-lightest of the halogens, it appears between fluorine and bromine in the periodic table and its properties are mostly intermediate between them. Chlorine is a yellow-green gas at room temperature. It is an extremely reactive element and a strong oxidising agent: among the elements, it has the highest electron affinity and the third-highest electronegativity on the Pauling scale, behind only oxygen and fluorine.
  The most common compound of chlorine, sodium chloride, has been known since ancient times. Around 1630, chlorine gas was first synthesised in a chemical reaction, but not recognised as a fundamentally important substance. Carl Wilhelm Scheele wrote a description of chlorine gas in 1774, supposing it to be an oxide of a new element. In 1809, chemists suggested that the gas might be a pure element, and this was confirmed by Sir Humphry Davy in 1810, who named it from Ancient Greek: χλωρός, romanized: khlôros, lit. 'pale green' based on its colour.
  Because of its great reactivity, all chlorine in the Earth's crust is in the form of ionic chloride compounds, which includes table salt.
context_section_description: The chlorine oxides are well-studied in spite of their instability (all of them are endothermic compounds). They are important because they are produced when chlorofluorocarbons undergo photolysis in the upper atmosphere and cause the destruction of the ozone layer. None of them can be made from directly reacting the elements.
  Dichlorine monoxide (Cl₂O) is a brownish-yellow gas (red-brown when solid or liquid) which may be obtained by reacting chlorine gas with yellow mercury(II) oxide. It is very soluble in water, in which it is in equilibrium with hypochlorous acid (HOCl), of which it is the anhydride. It is thus an effective bleach and is mostly used to make hypochlorites. It explodes on heating or sparking or in the presence of ammonia gas.
  Chlorine dioxide (ClO₂) was the first chlorine oxide to be discovered in 1811 by Humphry Davy. It is a yellow paramagnetic gas (deep-red as a solid or liquid), as expected from its having an odd number of electrons: it is stable towards dimerisation due to the delocalisation of the unpaired electron. It explodes above −40 °C as a liquid and under pressure as a gas and therefore must be made at low concentrations for wood-pulp bleaching and water treatment. It is usually prepared by reducing a chlorate as follows:
  ClO⁻
  ₃ + Cl⁻ + 2 H⁺ ⟶ ClO₂ +  Cl₂ + H₂O
  Its production is thus intimately linked to the redox reactions of the chlorine oxoacids. It is a strong oxidising agent, reacting with sulfur, phosphorus, phosphorus halides, and potassium borohydride. It dissolves exothermically in water to form dark-green solutions that very slowly decompose in the dark. Crystalline clathrate hydrates ClO₂·nH₂O (n ≈ 6–10) separate out at low temperatures. However, in the presence of light, these solutions rapidly photodecompose to form a mixture of chloric and hydrochloric acids. Photolysis of individual ClO₂ molecules result in the radicals ClO and ClOO, while at room temperature mostly chlorine, oxygen, and some ClO₃ and Cl₂O₆ are produced. Cl₂O₃ is also produced when photolysing the solid at −78 °C: it is a dark brown solid that explodes below 0 °C. The ClO radical leads to the depletion of atmospheric ozone and is thus environmentally important as follows:
  Cl• + O₃ ⟶ ClO• + O₂
  ClO• + O• ⟶ Cl• + O₂
  Chlorine perchlorate (ClOClO₃) is a pale yellow liquid that is less stable than ClO₂ and decomposes at room temperature to form chlorine, oxygen, and dichlorine hexoxide (Cl₂O₆). Chlorine perchlorate may also be considered a chlorine derivative of perchloric acid (HOClO₃), similar to the thermally unstable chlorine derivatives of other oxoacids: examples include chlorine nitrate (ClONO₂, vigorously reactive and explosive), and chlorine fluorosulfate (ClOSO₂F, more stable but still moisture-sensitive and highly reactive). Dichlorine hexoxide is a dark-red liquid that freezes to form a solid which turns yellow at −180 °C: it is usually made by reaction of chlorine dioxide with oxygen. Despite attempts to rationalise it as the dimer of ClO₃, it reacts more as though it were chloryl perchlorate, [ClO₂]⁺[ClO₄]⁻, which has been confirmed to be the correct structure of the solid. It hydrolyses in water to give a mixture of chloric and perchloric acids: the analogous reaction with anhydrous hydrogen fluoride does not proceed to completion.
  Dichlorine heptoxide (Cl₂O₇) is the anhydride of perchloric acid (HClO₄) and can readily be obtained from it by dehydrating it with phosphoric acid at −10 °C and then distilling the product at −35 °C and 1 mmHg. It is a shock-sensitive, colourless oily liquid. It is the least reactive of the chlorine oxides, being the only one to not set organic materials on fire at room temperature. It may be dissolved in water to regenerate perchloric acid or in aqueous alkalis to regenerate perchlorates. However, it thermally decomposes explosively by breaking one of the central Cl–O bonds, producing the radicals ClO₃ and ClO₄ which immediately decompose to the elements through intermediate oxides.
caption: Structure of dichlorine heptoxide, Cl2O7, the most stable of the chlorine oxides
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