Erbium(III) chloride is a violet solid with the formula . It is used in the preparation of erbium metal.

Preparation

Anhydrous erbium(III) chloride can be produced by the

ammonium chloride route Lanthanide trichlorides are a family of inorganic compound with the formula Ln Cl3, where Ln stands for a lanthanide metal. The trichlorides are standard reagents in applied and academic chemistry of the lanthanides. They exist as anhydrous solids ...

. In the first step, erbium(III) oxide is heated with ammonium chloride to produce the ammonium salt of the pentachloride: : In the second step, the ammonium chloride salt is converted to the trichloride by heating in a vacuum at 350-400 ºC: :

Structural data

Erbium(III) chloride forms crystals of the type, with monoclinic crystals and the

point group In geometry, a point group is a mathematical group of symmetry operations (isometries in a Euclidean space) that have a fixed point in common. The coordinate origin of the Euclidean space is conventionally taken to be a fixed point, and every p ...

''C''2/m. Erbium(III) chloride hexahydrate also forms monoclinic crystals with the point group of ''P''2/''n'' (''P''2/''c'') - ''C''⁴_2h. In this compound, erbium is octa-coordinated to form ions with the isolated completing the structure.

Optical properties

Erbium(III) chloride solutions show a negative nonlinear absorption effect.

Catalytic properties

The use of erbium(III) chloride as a catalyst has been demonstrated in the acylation of

alcohols In chemistry, an alcohol is a type of organic compound that carries at least one hydroxyl () functional group bound to a saturated carbon atom. The term ''alcohol'' originally referred to the primary alcohol ethanol (ethyl alcohol), which is ...

and phenols and in an amine functionalisation of

furfural Furfural is an organic compound with the formula C4H3OCHO. It is a colorless liquid, although commercial samples are often brown. It has an aldehyde group attached to the 2-position of furan. It is a product of the dehydration of sugars, as occurs ...

.''Synthesis of trans-4,5-Bis-dibenzylaminocyclopent-2-enone from Furfural Catalyzed by ErCl3·6H2O'' Mónica S. Estevão, Ricardo J. V. Martins, and Carlos A. M. Afonso Journal of Chemical Education 2017 94 (10), 1587-1589 It is a catalyst for Friedel–Crafts-type reactions, and can be used in place of

cerium(III) chloride Cerium(III) chloride (CeCl3), also known as cerous chloride or cerium trichloride, is a compound of cerium and chlorine. It is a white hygroscopic salt; it rapidly absorbs water on exposure to moist air to form a hydrate, which appears to be of v ...

for Luche reductions.

References

{{Lanthanide halides Erbium compounds Chlorides Lanthanide halides