Hello all,
I am taking an undergraduate introduction to inorganic chemistry course. I have had a little difficulty coming up with a sufficient explanation for a problem. To summarize the question, why does krypton only form krypton difluoride and its derivatives, only gaining an oxidation state of +2, while Xenon has many fluoride compounds and can have an oxidation state exceeding +2? I have done a little poking around here and couldn't really find anything that was specific to this question since it seems like krypton chemistry is not really a large field, the reason for this is also likely the answer to my question. In my text, housecraft and sharpe,a later chapter on group 18 chemistry alludes to krypton chemistry stating that the reason why only KrF2 is stable has to do with molecular orbital theory. I have done a bunch of reading both in the text and out of it and can't really come to a conclusion to my problem. Any help on this would be much appreciated, since I have been pulling my hair out musing on this for the last day or two. Thanks in advance!