Technetium is the lightest radioelement and the last transition metal to be discovered. Study of simple technetium binary halides is essential to the understanding of the chemistry of this element; it is also relevant to nuclear and medical applications: development new waste form materials and new imaging agent for the nuclear medicine. Prior 2008, technetium divalent and trivalent binary chlorides were unknown and only three Tc binary halides were unambiguously characterized: TcF6, TcF5, and TcCl4. The absence of technetium trivalent chloride was surprising considering the existence of such compounds for all the element surrounding technetium. The presence of trichloride has been shown in the gas but the preparation of Tc3Cl9 has been attempted without success. The synthesis strategies used to obtained binary halides (i.e., stoichiometric reaction between the element in a sealed tube, and flowing gas reaction between a preformed dimer and HX gas, X = Cl, Br, I) have not been reported for technetium. In this context, the technetium group at the University of Nevada Las Vegas investigated the synthetic chemistry of technetium chlorides, bromides and iodides; over the past five years, seven new technetium binary phases have been prepared : TcBr4, TcBr3, a/b-TcCl3, a/b-TcCl2 and TcI3. In this tribute to Al Sattelberger, the chemistry of technetium binary halides will be reviewed.

Technetium binary halides: A tribute to Al Sattelberger

251st National Meeting (2016)

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