Water of crystallization degree of hydration can be critical to the resulting chemical properties. For example, anhydrous RhCl is not soluble in water and is relatively useless in organometallic chemistry whereas RhCl•3HO is versatile. Similarly, hydrated AlCl is a poor Lewis acid and thus inactive as a catalyst for Friedel-Crafts reactions. Samples of AlCl must therefore be protected from atmospheric moisture to preclude the formation of hydrates. Crystals of hydrated copper(II) sulfate consist of [Cu(HO)] centers linked to SO ions. Copper is surrounded by six oxygen atoms, provided by two different sulfate groups and four molecules of water. A fifth water resides elsewhere
Chemical compound from chemical compounds, which require the fixed ratios. Many solid chemical substances—for example many silicate minerals—are chemical substances, but do not have simple formulae reflecting chemically bonding of elements to one another in fixed ratios; even so, these crystalline substances are often called "non-stoichiometric compounds". It may be argued that they are related to, rather than being chemical compounds, insofar as the variability in their compositions is often due to either the presence of foreign elements trapped within the crystal structure of an otherwise known true "chemical compound", or due to perturbations in structure relative to the known compound that