Published in Henry Rzepa's Blog

A recently published review on hypervalency[cite]10.1039/C5SC02076J[/cite] introduced a very simple way of quantifying the effect. One of the molecules which was suggested to be hypervalent using this method was diazomethane. Here I take a closer look.

References

General Chemistry

A quantitative definition of hypervalency

Published in Chemical Science

The concept of hypervalency has had a long but troubled history. Although several attempts have been made to dispense with the concept altogether, it remains in widespread use. By developing a simple but quantitative measure of hypervalency, the concept can be rehabilitated to provide valuable chemical insights in the context of Lewis models.