that particular chost was extremely popular! glad people like colorful chemicals, because we sure do.
here's the maroon colored chloropentaämminecobalt(3) chloride again, on the right—that's an ionic compound or "salt" of chloride anions with a complex cation formed from a trivalent cobalt atom (i.e. a cobalt atom stripped of three electrons) surrounded in an octahedral pattern by five ammonia molecules and a tightly bound chloride ligand, as in the second picture.
the orange-yellow crystals on the left are hexaämminecobalt(3) chloride, a compound that's almost the same, except that the cobalt(3) atom is surrounded by six ammonia ligands. as I recall, this substance is quite a bit tougher to make than CoCl(NH3)5Cl2, which crystallizes readily from a cobalt solution treated with ammonia and ammonium chloride, and oxidized with air or hydrogen peroxide. in fact the ready precipitation of chloropentaämminecobalt(3) chloride, i.e. eggbug powder, affords a means for separation of cobalt from other metals, particularly nickel.
so, should we make eggbug powder? we do have the materials on hand for it.
~Chara of Pnictogen
