The ionic isomegethic rule and additivity relationships: estimation of ion volumes. A route to the energetics and entropics of new, traditional, hypothetical, and counterintuitive ionic materials

By virtue of our recently established relationships, knowledge of the formula unit volume, V(m), of a solid ionic material permits estimation of thermodynamic properties such as standard entropy, lattice potential energy, and, hence, enthalpy and Gibbs energy changes for reactions. Accordingly, development of an approach to obtain currently unavailable ion volumes can expose compounds containing these ions to thermodynamic scrutiny, such as predictions regarding stability and synthesis. The isomegethic rule, introduced in this paper, states that the formula unit volumes, V(m), of isomeric ionic salts are approximately the same; this rule then forms the basis for a powerful and successful means of predicting unknown ion volumes (as well as providing a means of validating existing volume and density data) and, thereby, providing solid state thermodynamic data. The rule is exploited to generate unknown ion and (by additivity) corresponding formula unit volumes.