Aluminium monochloride, or chloridoaluminium is the
metal
A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...
halide with the formula AlCl. Aluminum monochloride as a molecule is thermodynamically stable at high temperature and low pressure only. This compound is produced as a step in the Alcan process to smelt aluminium from an aluminium-rich alloy. When the alloy is placed in a reactor that is heated to 1,300 °C and mixed with Aluminium chloride, aluminium trichloride, a gas of aluminium monochloride is produced.
:
It then disproportionation, disproportionates into aluminium melt and aluminium trichloride upon cooling to 900 °C.
This molecule has been detected in the interstellar medium, where molecules are so dilute that intermolecular collisions are unimportant.
See also
*Aluminium monofluoride
*Aluminium monobromide
*Aluminium monoiodide
References
Aluminium(I) compounds
Chlorides
Metal halides
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