Structural information contained in the XPS spectra of nd¹⁰ metal cyanides

nd¹⁰ metal cyanides have an interesting coordination chemistry where the properties of the involved metal and the cyanide ligand are combined to form coordination polymers with attractive physical properties. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) has proven to be an appropriate technique to provide information on the coordination chemistry of transition metal cyanides, including coordination geometry for the involved metal, coordination mode of the CN ligand, and electron density redistribution due to the well-known π-back bonding effect in transition metal cyanides, etc. This contribution discusses on the structural information contained in the XPS spectra of nd¹⁰ metal cyanides, CuCN, AgCN, AuCN, Zn(CN)₂, Cd(CN)₂ and Hg(CN)₂. The results from XPS data were complemented with the corresponding Raman spectra. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first systematic study of this metal cyanides series from XPS data and considering the available structural information for each of the series members. The results herein discussed are relevant because this series of metal cyanides finds important industrial applications and have relevant functional properties. Of these six nd¹⁰ metal cyanides, only for copper the NIST XPS Data Base has available information.