Which of the following cannot be explained by crystal field theory?
Which of the following cannot be explained by crystal field theory?
The order of spectrochemical series
Magnetic properties of transition metal complexes
Colour of metal complexes
Stability of metal complexes
Solution
The crystal field model is successful in explaining the formation, structures, colour and magnetic properties of coordination compounds to a large extent. However, from the assumptions that the ligands are point charges, it follows that anionic ligands should exert the greatest splitting effect. The anionic ligands actually are found at the low end of the spectrochemical series. So, it couldn't explain successfully the order of spectrochemical series.