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JEE Advanced 2025 Paper 2 · Chemistry · Solutions, Solid State and Surface Chemistry · hard

In an ionic solid MX the anions X^- (radius R) form a cubic close-packed array and the cations M^+ occupy all the octahedral voids, just touching the…

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In an ionic solid MX\mathrm{MX} the anions X−\mathrm{X^-} (radius RR) form a cubic close-packed array and the cations M+\mathrm{M^+} occupy all the octahedral voids, just touching the anions, with anions also just touching each other along a face diagonal of the unit cell (edge aa). Which of the following is/are correct?
  1. A. Each M+\mathrm{M^+} has six nearest anion neighbours
  2. B. Each X−\mathrm{X^-} has twelve nearest anion neighbours
  3. C. The fraction of the unit-cell volume occupied by the ions is 0.740.74
  4. D. The edge length is a=4R/3a=4R/\sqrt3
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Answer: A, B

The structure is rock salt. (A) Correct: octahedral voids give coordination number 6. (B) Correct: anions are in a face-centred cubic array, so each has 12 nearest anion neighbours at a/2a/\sqrt2. (C) Incorrect: the anion array alone has packing fraction 0.740.74, but the cations fill the voids too. Touching along the face diagonal gives 4R=2 a4R=\sqrt2\,a, so a=22Ra=2\sqrt2R and the octahedral void radius is r=a/2−R=(2−1)R=0.414Rr=a/2-R=(\sqrt2-1)R=0.414R. The cell has 4 anions and 4 cations, so the fraction is 4⋅43π(R3+r3)a3=16π3⋅1.071122.63=0.793\frac{4\cdot\frac43\pi(R^3+r^3)}{a^3}=\frac{16\pi}{3}\cdot\frac{1.0711}{22.63}=0.793. (D) Incorrect: a=4R/3a=4R/\sqrt3 applies to a body-diagonal contact (bcc), whereas here the contact is along the face diagonal and a=4R/2=22Ra=4R/\sqrt2=2\sqrt2R.
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