The Basic Inorganic Chemistry by F. Albert Cotton, Geoffrey Wilkinson, and Paul L. Gaus is the quintessential educational textbook on inorganic chemistry worldwide. Teachers and students have found this to be an excellent reference book, a text that could easily be classified as a classic in its field.

The book systematically and clearly presents the fundamental elements and principles of inorganic chemistry, with a primary emphasis on experimental data. The chemistry of the elements and their compounds are organized by groups of compounds and types of reactions, while periodicity in structure and reactivity is emphasized.

This 3rd edition (1st Greek) includes significant additions as well as improvements to the original text: a more comprehensive introduction to inorganic chemistry, improved treatment of atomic orbitals and various properties (such as electronegativity), new approaches to the depiction of ionic structures, nomenclature for transition metal compounds, quantitative approaches to acid-base chemistry, extensive and unified treatment of periodicity in the structure and reactivity of main group elements, Wade's rules for boranes and carboranes, chemistry of new significant categories of substances (such as fullerenes and silenes), and a new chapter on inorganic solid state.

Additionally, an appendix has been added with material on elements and symmetry processes as well as on point groups, and the glossary has been updated. The present Basic Inorganic Chemistry is the textbook that has introduced and trained millions of science students around the world.

Part 1: Basic Principles

1. Preliminary Elements

2. The Electronic Structure of Atoms

3. Structure and Bonds in Molecules

4. Ionic Solids

5. The Chemistry of Selected Anions

6. Inclusion Chemistry

7. Solvents, Solutions, Acids, and Bases

8. The Periodic Table and the Chemistry of the Elements

Part 2: The Elements of the Main Groups

9. Hydrogen

10. The Group I A (1) Elements: Lithium, Sodium, Potassium, Rubidium, and Cesium

11. The Group II A (2) Elements: Beryllium, Magnesium, Calcium, Strontium, and Barium

12. Boron

13. The Group III A (13) Elements: Aluminum, Gallium, Indium, and Thallium

14. Carbon

15. The Group IV A (14) Elements: Silicon, Germanium, Tin, and Lead

16. Nitrogen

17. The Group V A (15) Elements: Phosphorus, Arsenic, Antimony, and Bismuth

18. Oxygen

19. The Group VI A (16) Elements: Sulfur, Selenium, Tellurium, and Polonium

20. The Halogens: Fluorine, Chlorine, Bromine, Iodine, and Astatine

21. The Noble Gases

22. Zinc, Cadmium, and Mercury

Part 3: Transition Elements

23. Introduction to Transition Elements: The Theory of the Field of Substituents

24. The First Series Transition Elements

25. The Second and Third Series Transition Elements

26. Scandium, Yttrium, Lanthanum, and the Lanthanides

27. The Actinides

Part 4: Some Points of Special Interest

28. Metal Carbonyls and Other Transition Metal Complexes with p-acceptor (p-acids) Substituents

29. Organometallic Compounds

30. Stoichiometric and Catalytic Reactions of Organometallic Compounds

31. Bioinorganic Chemistry

32. The Inorganic Solid State

Appendix I: Topics of Symmetry and Point Groups

Appendix II A: Hydrogenoid Wavefunctions Factorized by Their Radial [R(r)] and Angular [Θ(θ)Φ(φ)] Components

Appendix II B: Ionization Enthalpies of the Elements

Appendix II C: Ionic Radii

Appendix II D: Electron Connection Enthalpies for Selected Elements

Appendix II E: A Comparison of Electronegativity Values (Pauling Units) from Four Sources

Definitions

Index