The compound crystallizes in the aluminium trifluoride motif. Each fluoride is a doubly bridging ligand. The cobalt centers are octahedral.
CoF3 decomposes upon contact with water to give oxygen:
4 CoF3 + 2 H2O → 4 HF + 4 CoF2 + O2
It reacts with fluoride salts to give the anion [CoF6]3−, which is also features high-spin, octahedral cobalt(III) center.
As you go down a group on the periodic table, atomic radii tend to increase because elements with larger atomic numbers have more occupied electron levels which take up more space surrounding the nucleus.
I hope this helps.
Varuable, In algebra, a symbol (usually a letter) standing in for an unknown numerical value in an equation :)
