Nanomaterials Chemistry
This list includes a number of LOs to help in teaching nanomaterials subjects; however, it is not exhaustive.
Updated June 2018.
ColourLex - a colorful website!
Description
ColourLex (colourlex.com) is an amazing website that mixes chemistry and art. The creators of this website have extensively catalogued paintings and the pigments that were used to create them. The pigments range from artificial to natural and organic to inorganic. You can search for the specific combination that you want to see.
Writing Lab Reports
Description
Each spring semester I take on the task of teaching and grading full lab reports for my senior advanced inorganic chemistry class. For most this is their first experience writing a document of this magnitude as most other labs they have previously taken require either lab report sheets or the occasional abbreviated lab memo. As I read their lab reports each year I am reminded both how challenging it is to teach writing (more specifically scientific writing) and to grade the reports objectively.
d orbital splitting in Trigonal Pyramidal Field
Description
This is a short critical thinking exercise that I use to assess whether my students have understood where the d orbital splitting in Octahedral and Tetrahedral geometry comes from. I do it at the beginning of the class after we discuss CFT/LFT in Oh and Td compounds.
Synthesis and Characterization of a Series of Organometallic Ru(II) Complexes with Fluorinated Phosphine and Phosphite Ligands
Description
In this experiment, students will synthesize and characterize a series of Ru(II) p-cymene piano-stool complexes.
Point Group Battles Activity
Description
In this activity, a pair of students are show an object or molecule and are asked to determine the point group before their competitor.
Working with Catalytic Cycles
Description
Students work in groups to identify relevant steps and intermediates in 3 catalytic cycles, all the while considering bonding (and electron counting) factors. Following assignment of these steps and intermediate species, the students consider several questions related to catalysis more broadly, particularly the role of each reagent, how to speed up or slow down specific steps, and the importance of regiospecificity in certain steps.
Iron Cross-Coupling Catalysis
Description
In this experiment, students will synthesize and characterize an iron complex followed by completion of two series of catalytic cross-coupling reactions mimicking the methodology utilized by organometallic chemists to balance catalyst efficacy and substrate scope. Initially the complex Fe(acac)3 [acac = acetylacetone] is prepared. Two sets of catalytic reactions are completed: one comparing different iron catalysts (Fe(acac)3, FeCl2, FeCl3) while the other compares substrates (4-chlorotoluene, 4-chlorobenzonitrile, 4-chlorotrifluorotoluene).
Annotated List of Metal-Containing Structures in the Cambridge Structural Database Teaching Subset
Description
The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) provides many free programs that can be used to view and manipulate crystal structures. Additionally, they have made a subset of the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) available for teaching purposes and many educational activities have been created to go along with this teaching subset (see link below). This teaching subset can be freely viewed through the WebCSD interface or can be used in the freely-available Mercury program. (Mercury is avaliable for Mac, Windows, and Linux systems.)