Talk:Phosphorus pentachloride

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I'm wondering if there is enough material to write separate articles on Phosphorus trichloride and Phosphorus pentachloride. For now, I'm lumping these two together in one article, Phosphorus chlorides. Also, I'm wondering if Phosphorus oxychloride (POCl3) should be thrown in here too, or is there sufficient material for a separate article. If this article is eventually separated, maybe POCl3 should go with PCl5 as a product of PCl5 reactions. H Padleckas 14:57, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think that there is definitely enough on the various chlorides to warrant separate pages for each, though this page is a useful one too, particularly if we can include POCl3 as well. I hadn't realised before, but it turns out that PCl3 is a commodity chemical (I think hundreds of thousands of tonnes/year, if I recall correctly from Greenwood & Earnshaw). It is used for making plasticisers like tricresyl phosphate, as well as triphenylphosphine (I think I recall BASF uses the Wittig rxn on a large scale) and phosphite esters. As for POCl3, it is used in organic chemistry to dehydrate amides to nitriles and related things like hydroxypyrimidines to chloropyrimidines, and to carry out a Bischler-Napieralski reaction. PCl5 will do some of the same chemistry, but it is different again- it is the best one for delivering chlorine of the three. For example, I think that if you treat acetone with PCl3 or POCl3 you don't get any replacement going on (though maybe POCl3 might make mesitylene, there's a research idea!), whereas PCl5 will make 2,2-dichloropropane. So as I see it they have some similarities (making this page useful), but each is distinct enough and important enough to warrant their own page too. Also see response on my talk page. Walkerma 17:44, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have just a little more to write on phosphorus pentachloride here in this article, and then I will be done. I added some tidbits about phosphorus oxytrichloride and a picture of it in this article. Maybe the article should be renamed to "Phosphorus chlorides and oxychloride". H Padleckas 12:02, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

I think the name should stay the same, from what I've seen articles with complicated titles tend to get overlooked. As long as you state in the intro that you are covering POCl3 as well, that is fine IMHO. Walkerma 19:41, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
  • A presentable draft of a phosphorus halides page is now available for comment at User:Physchim62/Temp. A page such as this enables us to give some information about compounds which either do not merit their own page or for which we haven't yet got round to writing a better article. I have only included commercially available oxyhalides and thiohalides, for want of data on the others at present. All comments are welcome, either as to the utility of such a page or as to the choice of information which should go on it. Physchim62 13:56, 21 May 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Proposal to move this article to a new title "phosphorus pentachloride"

Phosphorus pentachloride merits its own page. Phosphorus trichloride and phosphorus oxytrichloride already have their own dedicated articles. So my proposal is to go through this one, moving material to those two pages and leaving the rest for PCl5. We'll need a ChemBox and tidying up. Please register your views or recommendations on my proposal. One downside is that yes, there would no longer be a page that gave an overview of phosphorus halides. One approach would be to leave the present article alone and just start a PCl5 artcle, but I doubt if WEChem community wants a general chloride page for each element.--Smokefoot 22:41, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I think I'd support that, you can see some of my comments in the above debates. I'd propose merging some of the more general stuff into the broader phosphorus halides article. I think having this intermediate level of coverage (chlorides) is a bit redundant. I'll solicit comments from User:H Padleckas. Walkerma 04:48, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
At one time, I collected some notes on phosphorus chlorides, especially phosphorus pentachloride, for use in expanding this article. Unfortunately, I cannot find these notes; it appears as if I won't get back to finishing this article the way I once planned. At that time Wikipedia was much smaller, there were fewer chemists working on Wikipedia and significantly less written on chemistry, and many chemistry articles wanting for improvement. I originally started the Phosphorus chlorides article to cover multiple compunds, in a manner similar to the Phosphoric acids and phosphates article I wrote as well as a few other multi-compound articles. Since then, WikiProject Chemicals was started, the number of chemists working on Wikipedia has increased considerably and many chemistry and compound articles have been started or expanded. A general consensus seems to have been created in the WikiProject Chemicals that individual compounds should have their own articles in many cases.
We do not want a general chlorides page for every element, mostly because most elements will have only one form of chloride and in many cases the chloride will not be that significant and there will not be that much to say about it. My opinion is that the chlorides of phosphorus are an exception, since there is more than one chloride and the phosphorus chlorides are significant reagents. However, here is what we can do:
The problems of page moves are not insurmoutable: there are relatively few links to phosphorus pentachloride for the moment. I support the move, as I think it will give us fewer problems later when coverage becomes even larger... However, other info should be placed in phosphorus halides or elsewhere as appropriate: I shall watch this talk page "admin-wise" for these reasons. Physchim62 (talk) 14:13, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New article

Okay I refreshed this thing, but no doubt I messed up some of it. I expanded the content on PCl5. Most of the other info in the previous article was already in PCl3 and POCl3, so there was not much to move. If I messed up this process, I have thick skin.--Smokefoot 00:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)