Explain the packing and voids in ionic solids.
Answers
The particles of the ionic solids are packed up in the close package in hexagonal or cubic shape.
There is a number of voids of the octahedral voids that are equal closed package particles.
However, the tetrahedral voids are the one that has the double closed packages.
These are due to the cations and anions.
Answer: the constituent particles in ionic solids are the cations and anions. They carry positive and negative charge respectively.
The structure of the unit cell depends on the relative sizes of cations and anions. Usually cation has relatively small size and accupies tetrahedral or octahedral voids.
The tetrahedral void is occupied when the size of the cation is relatively small. Octahedral voids are occupied by bigger cations .
Sometime the size of the cations is so large tht they cannot occupy octahedral voids. Then the structure of the unit cell is modified