Transition metal nitrate complex

Often, bidentate nitrate, denoted κ2-NO3, is bound unsymmetrically in the sense that one M-O distance is clearly bonding and the other is more weakly interacting.

With three terminal oxide groups, nitrate can in principle bind metals through many geometries.

Some of these salts crystallize with one or more nitrate ligands, but most are assumed to dissolve in water to give aquo complexes, often of the stoichiometry [M(H2O)6]n+.

Anhydrous nitrates can be prepared by the oxidation of metals with dinitrogen tetroxide (often as a mixture with nitrogen dioxide, with which it interconverts).

N2O4 undergoes molecular autoionization to give [NO+] [NO3−], with the former nitrosonium ion being a strong oxidant.

[15] Nitrogen oxides readily interconvert between various forms, some of which may act as completing ligands.