Coordination polyhedra LnCl n (Ln = La-Lu) in crystal structures

The Voronoi-Dirichlet polyhedra (VDP) and the method of intersecting spheres were used to analyze 125 compounds containing 182 crystallographically nonequivalent sorts of LnCl _n complexes (Ln = La-Lu). The lanthanum C.N. varies from 6 to 10; eight sorts of coordination polyhedra are encountered in the structures, the Ln-Cl bond lengths in which can vary by 0.1–0.8 Å, depending on the C.N.(Ln). Despite the great diversity of C.N. and large scatter of bond lengths, the volume of the VDP was found to depend only on the nature of the Ln atom and its valence state