Gallium Chemistry: To be or not to be a Triple Bond! (Power)
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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.
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.
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.
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.
This is an addendum to the Manganese Carbonyl experiment (linked below). In this part of the experiment, students carry out high level quantum mechanical calculations of reactants, intermediates, and products in order to determine which of two possible structures is correct.
I was taught (many years ago) the common misconception that fitting the linearized form of the Eyring equation overstates the error in the intercept because on a 1/T axis, the intercept is at infinite temperature, and the intercept is far from the real data. While researching various methods of data fitting, I stumbled across this great article from the New Journal of Chemistry (New J.
This is a Reading guide to the Review article Transition Metal Speciation in the Cell: Insights from the Chemistry of Metal Ion Receptors Lydia A. Finney, et al. Science 300, 931 (2003);
DOI: 10.1126/science.1085049.
There are three ways to modulate the redox potential of a metalloenzyme: Changing ligands, changing geometry, and changing solvent. When I introduce this topic in Bioinorganic, I try to give my students concrete examples of each. I love this one because it applies what they learned in Gen Chem about the Nernst Equation to a biological problem. Granted, I don't use a metalloenzyme as my example, but I do pull the biological chemistry into it at the end, by referrring to the cytochrome oxidase/O2 couple.
I use this introductory exercise at the beginning (the very first thing) of my one semester topics course in Bioinorganic Chemistry and as the first exercise in my Bioinorganic unit in my senior level Inorganic Course. The exercise is a very simple one, but generates a lot of great discussion, requiring students to access knowledge from prior chemistry and biology courses, as well s common knowledge from sources external to their academic career. Students are often surprised to see how much they know before a topic is covered.