Amalgam (chemistry) The aluminium is the ultimate electron donor, and the mercury serves to mediate the electron transfer. The reaction itself and the waste from it contain mercury, so special safety precautions and disposal methods are needed. As an environmentally friendlier alternative, hydrides or other reducing agents can often be used to accomplish the same synthetic result. Another environmentally friendly alternative is an alloy of aluminium and gallium which similarly renders the aluminium more reactive by preventing it from forming an oxide layer. Tin amalgam was used in the middle of the 19th century as a reflective mirror coating. A variety of
Organosilver chemistry η-alkene complex. Silver is also present in other carbon-carbon bond skeletal rearrangements such as the quadricyclane to norbornadiene rearrangement, the cubane to cuneane rearrangement and the rearrangement of the cyclobutadiene dimer to cyclooctatetraene. Organosilver chemistry Organosilver chemistry in chemistry is the study of organometallic compounds containing a carbon to silver chemical bond and the study of silver as catalyst in organic reactions. In the group 11 elements silver is the element below copper. The chemistries have much in common but organosilver catalysis is much less common (mostly academic study) than organocopper chemistry due both to the relatively high price of