Gold, the king of the elements and the dearest metal, shows a unique chemistry. The aurophilic attraction or aurophilia is an empirically found phenomenon consisting of a weak attractive force between gold atoms that is, nevertheless, as strong as hydrogen bonds. This phenomenon produces, inter alia, shorter intramolecular and intermolecular distances than expected between gold centers and unexpected geometries: for instance, some amazing cases of hyper-coordination at oxygen, sulfur, nitrogen, phosphorus, or carbon have been found by means of X-ray diffraction studies. Theoretical chemists have rationalized the aurophilic attraction by taking account of relativistic and correlation effects.
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Citation
Bardají, Manuel; Laguna, Antonio. J. Chem. Educ.1999 76 201.
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