For your first problem, you should know, as a rule of thumb that the most common geometry encountered

for coordination complexes are octahedral. A square planar is just a mere derivative of the octahedral shape when two opposite ligands are removed.

Therefore, the angle subtended by the ligands in a square planar geometry is much smaller to that in a tetrahedral geometry. Therefore, steric hindrance ought to have a significant effect on the geometry of the complex. This effect is more pronounce in the smaller 3d metal ions that can be exemplified by the following ions.

4d or 5d metal ions are usually big enough to accommodate four ligands in a square planar geometry and tetrahedral geometries are rarely observed. Ligands play a role too in determining the geometry. One would expect complexes with large ligands such as pyridine (py) would favour the tetrahedral geometry. Another important attribute of ligands are the so-called weak field or strong field property. This attribute will determine the stability of the complex formed (being either tetrahedral or octahedral). We shall discuss this shortly. While qualitative considerations allow us to predict the possibility of the geometry of complexes with coordination number 4, only experimental evidences can confirm our predictions. Two commonly supportive experimental evidences are electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy and magnetic susceptibility measurements. Let us take look at the electronic configuration of the metal ions in tetrachloronickelate(II) and tetrachloroplatinate(II) (both in the same group) respectively.

Ni2+

[Ar] 3d8 3d 4s 4p

[NiCl4]2 3d Pt2+ [Xe] 4f145d8 5d [PtCl4]2 5d dsp2 6p 6s 6p sp3

In the formation of tetrachloroplatinate(II), two 5d electrons paired up and the vacant d orbital is used for forming hybrid orbitals that are square planar in geometry. On the other hand, the two unpaired electrons in nickel(II) remains unpaired in tetrachloronickelate(II). Hence, tetrachloronickelate(II) compounds are paramagnetic and the magnetic properties can be detected by using one of the above mentioned methods. For the second problem, you should know that the d orbitals are originally degenerate until in the presence of a ligand. The presence of the ligands breaks the degenerate orbitals into two groups (please accept the splitting into 3 + 2 at the moment).

energy o

absence of ligands

presence of ligands

o is called the octahedral splitting energy, i.e. the energy difference between the two sets of orbitals. The magnitude of which would depend on the ligands. A strong field ligand is one that results in large values of o (large splitting) while a weak field ligand gives small values of o (small splitting). The value of o can be determined from ultraviolet-visible (UV-VIS) spectrophotometry. So, by measuring the frequency corresponding to the maximum absorption of complexes of different ligands, one can determine from o
E h which ligands give large values of o. An example of a UV-VIS

spectrum is shown below (taken from Wikipedia). Note the maximum around 280 nm.

So, I supposed the answers to your problems are experimentally determined.

1. Complex ions with coordination number of 4 are tetrahedral or square planar. So, what determines whether a complex ion is tetrahedral or square planar? 2. In the crystal field theory of complex ion, 2 types of ligands are mentioned namely strong field ligand (CN- as example) and weak field ligand (F-). How do we determine whether a ligand is strong field or weak field?