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 bromine at −195 °C is pale yellow. Like solid chlorine and iodine, solid bromine crystallises in the orthorhombic crystal system, in a layered lattice of Br molecules. The Br–Br distance is 227 pm (close to the gaseous Br–Br distance of 228 pm) and the Br···Br distance between molecules is 331 pm within a layer and 399 pm between layers (compare the van der Waals radius of bromine, 195 pm). This structure means that bromine is a very poor conductor of electricity, with a conductivity of around 5 × 10 Ω cm just below the melting point, although this is better