Bromine dioxide Bromine dioxide Bromine dioxide is the chemical compound composed of bromine and oxygen with the formula BrO. It forms unstable yellow to yellow-orange crystals. It was first isolated by R. Schwarz and M. Schmeißer in 1937 and is hypothesized to be important in the atmospheric reaction of bromine with ozone. It is similar to chlorine dioxide, the dioxide of its halogen neighbor one period higher on the periodic table. Bromine dioxide is formed when an electric current is passed through a mixture of bromine and oxygen gases at low temperature and pressure. Bromine dioxide can also be formed by the
Bromine than the essentially undetectable conductivity of chlorine. At a pressure of 55 GPa (roughly 540,000 times atmospheric pressure) bromine undergoes an insulator-to-metal transition. At 75 GPa it changes to a face-centered orthorhombic structure. At 100 GPa it changes to a body centered orthorhombic monatomic form. Bromine has two stable isotopes, Br and Br. These are its only two natural isotopes, with Br making up 51% of natural bromine and Br making up the remaining 49%. Both have nuclear spin 3/2− and thus may be used for nuclear magnetic resonance, although Br is more favourable. The relatively 1:1 distribution of the