Chelating

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The act of creating stable complexes by binding metal ions through coordination
2. The technique used to prevent metal ion reactions by forming secure compounds with them
3. The process of binding metal ions to molecules to create stable ring-like structures

Etymology: Chelating comes from the Greek "chelē," meaning claw. The chemist who gave the word its modern sense, Morris Kharasch, was not reaching for a new Greek root at all: in the 1920s, the English chemist Gilbert T. Morgan and his colleague H. D. K. Drew described certain metal-binding compounds as "chelate" compounds, after the way a crab's pincer grips an object. The image was physical and precise. A molecule with several donor atoms wraps around a metal ion the way a claw closes around something, holding it on several sides at once. The verb "chelate" was formed from the noun "chelate," which was itself a new coinage on the Greek stem, and "chelating" is simply the present participle used as an adjective and verb form, describing the action of such binding. Chemists in the early twentieth century needed a name for ligands that clamp onto a metal in more than one place, and the claw metaphor was an apt choice that has stuck ever since.

Synonyms: binding, complexing