Character Tables for Chemically Important Point Groups

Submitted by Chip Nataro / Lafayette College on Mon, 02/09/2026 - 19:04
Description

You might be familiar with the wonderful symmetry site that was (to my knowledge) originally published on the Jacobs University site and with the name change to the Constructor University site. In addition to having wonderful character tables, the site allowed you to enter reducible representations that the site would then reduce. It would also allow you to the full range of molecular motions or select vibrations (both IR and Raman active). The site has disappeared from time to time and it is unclear if it will ever return.

Si and Ge ferrocenes
Description

This literature discussion is in honor of the work of Shigeyoshi Inoue, winner of the 2026 Frederic Stanley Kipping Award in Silicon Chemistry for “groundbreaking contributions to the synthesis and reactivity of low-valent silicon compounds, and advancing the potential of silicon in metal-free catalysis and small-molecule activation” (https://cen.acs.org/a

Chip Nataro / Lafayette College Thu, 02/05/2026 - 17:12

Interactive Tanabe-Sugano diagram

Submitted by Patrick Holland / Yale University on Tue, 02/03/2026 - 21:35
Description

As a collaboration with Rajas Ketkar (an excellent student in my inorganic chemistry class), we now have an online tool that you can use to "pull" a vertical line across each Tanabe-Sugano diagram and read off the intersecting E/B values. This should make the process easier and more intuitive for students. Please credit Rajas when using in your classes!

http://chem-tools.org

McIndoe Organometallic Group Videos

Submitted by Kyle Grice / DePaul University on Fri, 01/23/2026 - 10:19
Description

The McIndoe Group has a collection of Organometallic Chemistry-related videos that are useful for teaching students about techniques, such as glovebox maintenance and testing for peroxides.

As of January 2026, there were 91 videos on their channel.  

A Geometric Exploration of Metallic and Ionic Solid State Structure

Submitted by Jacob Lutter / University of Southern Indiana on Wed, 01/21/2026 - 17:12
Description

Two worksheets are given that walk students though visualizing and understanding solid state structure. The first worksheet focuses on metallic structure by introducing primitive, body-centered, and face-centered packing types in a cubic unit cell. Then, close packing structures are described followed by a discussion of holes in close packed or primitive packed lattices. The second worksheet introduces ionic solid structure types for the common binary salt lattices as well as perovskite and spinel structure types.

Characterization of group VI carbonyls with bidentate phosphines

Submitted by Chip Nataro / Lafayette College on Thu, 01/15/2026 - 14:53
Description

This literature discussion comes from a paper in the Turkish Journal of Chemistry (1999, 23, 9-14) https://journals.tubitak.gov.tr/chem/vol23/iss1/2/. In this paper, the authors report spectroscopic data for nine compounds, [M(CO)4(PP)] (M = Cr, Mo or W; PP = dppm, dppe, dppp). This is a very fundamental paper and as such, students are not expected to have had any significant coursework in inorganic chemistry.

Flavodiiron Oxygen Reductase
Description

This paper investigates factors that influence substrate specificity (O2 versus NO reductase activity) within flavodiiron enzymes. The authors mutate potentially relevant amino acids and investigate the biochemical and biophysical properties by UV-visible and EPR spectroscopies.

Amanda Reig / Ursinus College Thu, 11/20/2025 - 09:44

Synthesis and Group Theory Analysis of MoO2(acac)2

Submitted by Amanda Reig / Ursinus College on Fri, 11/14/2025 - 12:27
Description

This laboratory experiment is a quick and straightforward synthesis of a MoO2(acac)2 complex. The ligand set allows for two possible geometric arrangements: cis and trans. Using IR spectroscopy along with group theory analysis of the Mo-O stretching modes, students can determine which isomer they formed in their synthesis. NMR spectroscopy is also employed, and confirms the geometric arrangement due to the inequivalence of the acac methyl groups.

1FLO: Addition of H2 to four-coordinate iridium
Description

This paper (J. Organomet. Chem. 2022, 965-966, 122317) describes the synthesis and reactivity of four-coordinate iridium compound with a tridentate ligand. This ligand is referred to in the paper as a pincer ligand which are a general class of tridentate ligands that coordinate in a mer- arrangement.

Chip Nataro / Lafayette College Wed, 10/22/2025 - 13:41
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