Tetravalent rhodium is an understudied oxidation state of rhodium with a d5-electron configuration which has been shown in other systems to readily enable interesting quantum states (such as in Sr2IrO4 and RuCl3). However, tetravalent rhodium has proved extremely difficult to synthesize, thus we sought to explore how rhodium transitions from its trivalent to tetravalent oxidation state by removing sodium from NaRhO2 with ceric ammonium nitrate (CAN) as our oxidizer. Na(1-x)RhO2 was created by mixing CAN with NaRhO2 in acetonitrile and stirring for 24 hours. Ultimately, the reaction of the two compounds produced not only Na(1-x)RhO2 created, but an entirely new substance of unknown composition. It can thus be concluded that with an oxidizer such as ceric ammonium nitrate will not only strip sodium from the NaRhO2, but completely rearrange the individual atoms in the lattice structure. Going forward, we will study the structure, composition, and physical properties of this compound.
Ellen Ferranto
Project Year
Faculty Sponsor(s):
Juan Chamorro
Ram Seshadri
Departments:
Materials Research Laboratory