Cadmium Carbonic Anhydrase (CdCA): Sustaining Life Using a Toxic Metal Ion

Submitted by Peter Craig / McDaniel College on Tue, 07/15/2014 - 01:18
Description

The Diatom Thalassiosira weissflogii is very resilient.  It thrives in poor quality water, where high CO2 levels, chlorine and cadmium ion concentrations, and pH are observed.  How is it possible for cadmium ions to be a nutrient for this diatom, when it is normally seen as a toxin in biological systems?

This LO introduces students to bioinorganic chemistry using the enzyme carbonic anhydrase to illustrate biodiversity, adaptation, HASB theory, metal ion ligand bonding as represented by the PDB using Ligand Explorer, and more.

Application of binomial distribution to interpret 31P NMR for aqueous solution of alpha-dodecatungstophosphoric acid, H3[PW12O40]

Submitted by Poloxymetman / Canisius College on Mon, 07/14/2014 - 17:44
Description

31-P NMR spectrum of alpha-dodecatungstophosphoric acid is a combination of thirteen spectra, each spectrum representing the compound with a different number of 183W isotopes per molecule. In order to fully interpret the spectrum one needs to apply binomial distribution to calculate the mole fractions of the molecules with various numbers of 183W isotopes.

This LO requires an understanding of the satellites concept in NMR spectroscopy, originating from coupling with nuclei whose NMR active isotopes are not 100% abundant.

The Japan syndrome

Submitted by Carmen Gauthier / Florida Southern College on Mon, 07/14/2014 - 17:38
Description

This is an in-class discussion of an article that appeared in The Economist.  It can be used to review several topics covered in the first year chemistry class.

The Aconitase Enzyme Mechanism

Submitted by Laurel Goj Habgood / Rollins College on Mon, 07/14/2014 - 16:51
Description

This learning objective focuses on the enzyme aconitase.  The iron-sulfur cluster is used to regulate iron in the cell and isomerize citrate for energy – two very different mechanisms.  The activity consists of an introduction to the enzyme and a student discussion on the mechanism of the isomerization of citrate to isocitrate; starting in a small group setting followed by a class debriefing.  

The Structure and Color of Alums

Submitted by EGunn / Simmons College on Mon, 07/14/2014 - 13:09
Description

This is an in-class assignment designed to help students integrate their understanding of periodic trends and materials properties. Using the color of alum crystals as an example of octahedral coordination chemistry, students use their knowledge of electronic structure and periodic trends to predict which of the isomorphous alum crystals will be colored, and to qualtitatively rank the degree of crystal field splitting in a family of alum crystals.

Inorganic Spectroscopy Introduced Using an Interactive PhET Simulation (Part 2)

Submitted by Alycia Palmer / The Ohio State University on Mon, 07/14/2014 - 09:06
Description

This is the second part of a two-day class discussion on molecular and inorganic spectroscopy. In this activity, upper level students learn about spectroscopic tecniques used in inorganic chemistry and then devise an experiment to follow the progress of a hypothetical reaction. The activity also prepares students for the inorganic laboratory "Linkage isomerism of nitrogen dioxide" in which infrared spectroscopy is used to monitor changes to the N-O vibrational stretch upon coordination to a metal.

Coordination Diversity and Biological Activity of a Monodentate Au(III) Compound

Submitted by Sibrina Collins / College of Arts and Sciences at Lawrence Technological University on Thu, 07/10/2014 - 13:21
Description

 

This learning object focuses on a recent publication (Acta Crystallographia 2014, C70, 260 -266) by the Collins research group in the Department of Chemistry at The College of Wooster.  Specifically, the paper evaluates the coordination diversity of a N-donor ligand, 2-phenyl-1,10-phenanthroline(pnp) with three new pnp-metal complexes containing Au(III), Cu(II), and Pd(II) metal centers.

Dissecting Catalysts for Artificial Photosynthesis

Submitted by Anne Bentley / Lewis & Clark College on Mon, 07/07/2014 - 13:57
Description

Anne asked the students in her junior/senior inorganic course to develop their own literature discussion learning objects and lead the rest of the class in a discussion of their article.  Each student chose one article from a list of suggestions provided.  Student Hayley Johnston chose this article describing a Mn-containing catalyst for carbon dioxide reduction (Jonathan M. Smieja, Matthew D. Sampson, Kyle A. Grice, Eric E. Benson, Jesse D. Froehlich, and Clifford P.

Five Slides About Concurrent Tandem Catalysis

Submitted by Shirley Lin / United States Naval Academy on Thu, 07/03/2014 - 12:54
Description

This set of slides is adapted from a presentation given at the ACS National Meeting in New Orleans Spring 2013 in the symposium "Undergraduate Research at the Frontiers of Inorganic Chemistry" organized by members of the VIPEr leadership council. The slides are from the introduction to the presentation that takes the audience through how catalytic cycles are depicted and then to the concept of concurrent tandem catalysis (CTC). At the end, there is a slide with references that gives an example of how CTC can be applied to aryl halide substrates to form new C-C and C-H bonds.

Hard Soft Acid Base Theory - Coordination Trends in Alkali Metal Crown Ether Uranyl Halide Complexes: The Series [A(Crown)]2[UO2X4] Where A = Li, Na, K, and X = Cl, Br

Submitted by Gerard Rowe / University of South Carolina Aiken on Tue, 07/01/2014 - 11:13
Description

In this literature discussion, students are asked to read an article describing a series of uranyl halide compounds that contain an alkali counterion that interacts with one or more of the uranium's ligand atoms.  This paper stands out as a great example of the binding preferences of acids and bases, and can be explained very well using simple HSAB concepts.