What is "periodinane"

n. (context organic chemistry English) Any heterocycle containing hypervalent iodine

Periodinanes are chemical compounds containing hypervalent iodine. These iodine compounds are hypervalent because the iodine atom in it contains more than the 8 electrons in the valence shell required for the octet rule. When iodine is complexed with a monodentate electronegative ligand such as chlorine, iodine compounds occur with a +3 oxidation number as iodine(III) or λ-iodanes or as a +5 oxidation number as iodine(V) or λ-iodanes. Iodine itself contains 7 valence electrons and in a λ-iodane three more are donated by the ligands making it a decet structure. λ-iodanes are dodecet molecules. In an ordinary iodine compound such as iodobenzene the number of valence electrons is eight as expected. In order to get from iodine to a hypervalent iodine compound it gets oxidized with removal of first 3 electrons and then 5 electrons. The ligands in turn contribute electrons pairs and form coordinate covalent bonds by adding a total of 6 or 10 electrons back to iodine. In the L-I-N notation L stands for the number of electrons donated by ligands and N the number of ligands.