Mercury (element) long periods at elevated temperatures. It reverts to the elements upon heating near 400 °C, as was demonstrated by Joseph Priestley in an early synthesis of pure oxygen. Hydroxides of mercury are poorly characterized, as they are for its neighbors gold and silver. Being a soft metal, mercury forms very stable derivatives with the heavier chalcogens. Preeminent is mercury(II) sulfide, HgS, which occurs in nature as the ore cinnabar and is the brilliant pigment vermillion. Like ZnS, HgS crystallizes in two forms, the reddish cubic form and the black zinc blende form. The latter sometimes occurs naturally as metacinnabar. Mercury(II)
Metal ammine complex is ammonia (pK ~ 33). For highly cationic complexes such as [Pt(NH)], the conjugate base can be obtained. The deprotonation of cobalt(III) ammine-halide complexes, e.g. [CoCl(NH)] labilises the Co-Cl bond, according to the Sn1CB mechanism. Metal ammine complexes find many uses. Cisplatin (PtCl(NH)) is a coordination compound containing two chloro and two ammine ligands. This is a drug used in treating cancer. Many other amine complexes of the platinum group metals have been evaluated for this application. In the separation of the individual platinum metals from their ore, several schemes rely on the precipitation of [RhCl(NH)]Cl. In some separation schemes,