Crystal Structure and Bonding in Intermetallic Compounds

Intermetallic compounds achieved practical use before they were recognized as chemical objects owing to their relatively easy accessibility – the simplest intermetallic compounds and alloys based on these can be obtained by direct reaction of the components by melting, by sintering, or by reduction from oxides. Understanding of their chemical nature was additionally hindered by the fact that these compounds exist only in the solid state. The main problem of chemists with intermetallic compounds is that they do not follow the usual valence rules. Therefore, for a longer time these substances were not really considered as inorganic compounds.