Ternary compound

According to Rustum Roy and Olaf Müller,[3] "the chemistry of the entire mineral world informs us that chemical complexity can easily be accommodated within structural simplicity."

"The structural entity ... remains ternary in character and is able to accommodate an enormous range of chemical elements."

"[3]: 3, 4 Letting A and B represent cations and X an anion, these ternary groupings are organized by stoichiometric types A2BX4, ABX4, and ABX3.

One of type ABX4 may be of the class of zircon, scheelite, barite or an ordered silicon dioxide derivative.

An example would be the semiconductor indium gallium arsenide (InxGa1−xAs), a material with band gap dependent on In/Ga ratio.

In organic chemistry, the carbohydrates and carboxylic acids are ternary compounds with carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen.

Other organic ternary compounds replace oxygen with another atom to form functional groups.