Students are asked to find a coordination complex in the recent literature and analyze its structure. This homework or in-class activity is a great way for the instructor to crowd source the discovery of interesting new complexes to use as material in future exams.
This is a collection of LOs that I used to teach a junior-senior seminar course on organometallics during Fall 2014 at Harvey Mudd College.
In this exercise, students are introduced to Mercury, a program for visualizing and analyzing crystal structure data. Students are guided through opening the program for the first time and viewing a structure from the Teaching Subset, a selection of structures from the Cambridge Crystallographic Database (CSD). Activites include changing the representation of the complex, moving the structure around the window, accessing information about the structure, and measuring bond lengths and angles within the structure.
This is a two-week lab in which students synthesize and then characterize three Werner cobalt complexes using IR, UV/VIS and computer calculations using Spartan. Syntheses are based on procedures from:
Angelici, R. J. Synthesis and Technique in Inorganic Chemistry. University Science Books, 1996, pp 13-17.
Borer, L.L.; Erdman, H.W.; Norris, C.; Williams, J.; Worrell, J. Synthesis of trans-Tetraamminedichlorocobalt (III) chloride, Inorganic Syntheses, Vol 31, 1997, pp 270-271.
This set of questions was used to promote discussion within small groups (3 to 4 students) on how changing ligand properties can have dramatic effects on the product distributions in Pd-catalyzed cross coupling reactions. The questions are pretty difficult and not always straightforward, partly because they are derived from the primary literature and thus inherently "messy".
This lab was part of the materials science portion of my second-year inorganic chemistry course. Students synthesize a zeolite structure and grow a chemical garden as examples of silicate chemistry.
Students use a Java-based website to explore the faujasite zeolite structure. The activity questions guide them through identifying different atomic positions within the structure, and orienting the zeolite pores and "cages" relative to the crystal axes.
This lab handout and supplementary materials were developed based on a publication in the Journal of Chemical Education:
Berger, P.; Adelman, N.; Beckman, K.; Campbell, D.; Ellis, A.; Lisensky, G. Preparation and Properties of an Aqueous Ferrofluid. J. Chem. Educ. 1999, 76 (7), 943-48
In this activity, students apply knowledge of the trans effect to the synthesis of planar Pt(II) complexes that contain cis-amine/ammine motifs. These complexes are of interest as both potential novel chemotherapeutic Pt(II) complexes and as intermediates for promising chemotherapeutic drugs such as satraplatin. The questions in this LO are based on recent research described in the paper “Improvements in the synthesis and understanding of the iodo-bridged intermediate en route to the Pt(IV) prodrug satraplatin,” by Timothy C. Johnstone and Stephen C.