NMR Coin-Flip Game

Submitted by azmanam / Butler University on Fri, 06/15/2012 - 09:19
Description

A simple coin-flipping game to help students understand the origin of spin/spin splitting in 1H NMR.

The Covalent Bond Classification (CBC) website

Submitted by Chip Nataro / Lafayette College on Thu, 05/17/2012 - 09:27
Description

The covalent bond classification (CBC) method is a way to count electrons for transition metal compounds. It classifies ligands based on their type, either L, X or Z. This is the website for all things CBC. It contains a library which list useful materials for teaching CBC including books that teach the CBC method. The site also has teaching materials that contain MLX plots for all of the transition metals. The MLX plots are charts that show various electron counts and valence for a given metal.

Five Slides About Percent Buried Volume (%Vbur)

Submitted by Chip Nataro / Lafayette College on Mon, 04/23/2012 - 09:29
Description

These slides present a walkthough of performing a Percent Buried Volume (%Vbur) calculation. The %Vbur is a measurement of the bulk of a ligand coordinated to a transiton metal. The calculation uses the crystal structure of a compound to determine how much space a ligand occupies. It does this by placing the metal at the center of a sphere and then calculates the volume of that sphere occupied by the ligand. Originally developed for N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligands, it has also been applied to mono- and bidentate phosphines.

The Periodic Table of Life

Submitted by Katherine Franz / Duke University, Department of Chemistry on Fri, 04/20/2012 - 08:50
Description

A little more than 5 slides, this is a video I made for a colleague to use in General Chemistry as an intro, or hook, into exciting topics in chemistry (in this case, bioinorganic).  I use these slides as an intro to my junior/senior Inorganic course on the first day of class, to ask the question "What is Inorganic Chemistry?" and get them to think about the "living" parts of "inorganic".  Topics include an overview of essential, toxic, and medicinally active elements of the periodic table, key examples of metalloprotein active sites, and an overview of the functional roles of biological in

Modeling the FeB center in Bacterial Nitric Oxide Reductase: A Reading Guide

Submitted by Sheila Smith / University of Michigan- Dearborn on Fri, 02/24/2012 - 11:52
Description

In 2011, I was fortunate to have Nicolai Lehnert come and speak to my bioinorganic class on his work modeling the FeB (non heme iron) center in bacterial Nitric Oxide reductase.  He suggested this paper to prepare the students for his talk and I developed this reading guide to help them (the students) get more out of the reading.

CBC (Covalent Bond Classification) Method of Electron Counting

Submitted by Chip Nataro / Lafayette College on Thu, 02/02/2012 - 12:29
Description

This series of slides works through an example of electron counting using the CBC (Covalent Bond Classification) method. It compares and contrasts the classic ionic and covalent methods to the CBC method. The example used in these slides is an exception to the 18 electron rule using the the classic methods, but by CBC classification it is a very common ML4X4 tetravalent 16 electron Ti compound.

Inorganic Nomenclature and Point Group Identification: Combined In Class exercise

Submitted by Sheila Smith / University of Michigan- Dearborn on Thu, 01/26/2012 - 09:44
Description

I use this exercise in my 400-level Inorganic (Transition Metals) course.  Students have been introduced to assigning point groups in a 300- level Inorganic course on bonding theories.  Therefore, I combine a review of assigning point groups with the introduction to inorganic nomenclature in my advanced course.  This seems to break up the tedium of the rules for nomenclature while stressing that the need for such elaborate names comes from the need to correctly identify one structure among may isomeric possibilities.

Energy Nugget: Methane to Methanol

Submitted by Hilary Eppley / DePauw University on Thu, 01/12/2012 - 05:40
Description

This learning object was developed with a lot of help from B. Scott Williams from the Keck Science Department of the Claremont Colleges for my junior/senior level course in 2009.   This object is a literature discussion on the topic, but Scott and I hope to add a 5-slides about learning object to go with it shortly.   The primary literature article used for the discussion is “Characterization of a Rhodium(I) sigma-Methane Complex in Solution,” by Wesley H. Bernskoetter, Cynthia K. Schauer, Karen I.

Comprehensive Character Tables and Reducible Representation Tool

Submitted by Austin Scharf / Oxford College of Emory University on Wed, 01/11/2012 - 11:05
Description

This site is an excellent, well-organized collection of the chemically relevant character tables.  I find it particularly helpful because it includes the cubic functions, allowing you to determine the symmetry labels of the f orbitals in a given point group; these are not included in most of the collections of character tables in general inorganic chemistry textbooks.  Additionally, it has a tool that automatically reduces (correctly derived) reducible representations into their component irreducible representations.