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Caesium auride is the inorganic compound with the formula CsAu. It is the Cs+ salt of the unusual Au− anion.
The compound hydrolyzes readily, yielding caesium hydroxide, metallic gold, and hydrogen.
The solution in liquid ammonia is brown, and the ammonia adduct is blue; the latter has ammonia molecules intercalated between layers of the CsAu crystal parallel to the (110) plane. Solutions undergo metathesis with tetramethylammonium loaded ion exchange resin to give tetramethylammonium auride.
Crystal structure
Caesium auride has a cubic lattice structure of the Caesium chloride type. Each caesium atom is octahedrally coordinated with 8 gold atoms, and vice versa. The lattice constant at ambient conditions is approximately , close to that of CsCl but slightly larger due to the larger ionic radius compared to . The bonding is predominantly Ionic bonding, as found by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, because gold has a much higher electronegativity than caesium.
Further reading
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