Lattice Energies and their Significance in Inorganic Chemistry

This review article gives an account of the calculation of the lattice energies of ionic solids, the results of such calculations for a large number of salts and the application of these results and calculations to some problems in inorganic chemistry. No attempt has been made to deal with the many important topics, involving lattice energy calculations or calculations of similar type, which lie outside the region of inorganic chemistry. Examples of such topics are the calculation of the surface energies of crystals, the energies of formation and of movement of point defects in ionic solids and the crystal spect58 of ionic solids. Since then no extensive review of results and calculations has been undertaken, though there have been several accounts of various aspects of the subject. In order to account for the stability of crystals known to be composed of ions, it is necessary to introduce forces between the ions that are noncoulombic, for no stable equilibrium is possible in an electrostatic system of charges unless other forces are present. The history of the development of the theory of lattice energies is largely an account of the development of the ideas about these noncoulombic forces.