It is of significant interest to scientists to design materials and control the synthesis of compounds from ever increasingly complex building blocks. As yet, the mechanism and reaction intermediates for the formation of chalcogenide compounds is unknown. How the products of many of the reactions between metals and polchalcogenides come to be is uncertain. The participants in the reaction, the anions, and how cations interact with them, are poorly understood. It is unclear how the polychalcogenide starting material changes during the course of the reaction, and there are few methods for following reactions. It is known that there is a change in the anion during the reaction since the Q<sub>y</sub><sup>2-</sup> anion is not always present in the product. The products usually contain a fragment of the anion or an anion that is a product of the chalcogenide and one or more of the reactants. The method for predicting the products is merely based on comparison to other reactions and stoichiometry. To be able to synthesize a target compound, it is necessary to know what happens in the reaction and which participants are interacting. The determination of the species of chalcogenides in non-aqueous solvents is the first step toward understanding the reactions in question

New thoughts on the speciation of polychalcogenides in solutions: From lapis lazuli, to the paper industry, to synthetic inorganic chemistry and why my clothes smell so bad

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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