In search of a deep understanding of the relative stabilities of transition metal halides

An approach developed for teaching descriptive inorganic chemistry courses involves presenting a limited set of facts about several elements or several compounds. The facts are not memorized, but used as jumping-off points for inquiry into whys and wherefores of the chemistry of the elements. Stoichiometries of known, stable binary compounds is a fundamental aspect of descriptive chemistry, but it is not interesting to memorize a list of chemical formulas when d-metals compound stochiometry is studied.