A collection of all of the IONiC VIPEr SLiThErs (Supporting Learning with Interactive Teaching: a Hosted, Engaging Roundtable). These events are short presentations on a topic followed by a period of discussion between the presenter and live participants. Each of these events is recorded and posted to the IONiC VIPEr YouTube Channel.
Application of advanced instrumental and preparative techniques to the study of structure, reactivity, and spectroscopy of inorganic and organic substances including materials. This is a capstone course and includes a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) that runs throughout the semester.
In this lab we have two standard introduction labs (LUM and POR) and then a full CURE. This was the second time I ran this CURE (the first was Spring 2024).
The CURE is being published as a multi-institution ACS Symposium Series Chapter in 2026, and the materials from the CURE will be hosted in a collection on VIPEr.
Once the chapter is published, I will add the link to it in the description.
As a collaboration with Rajas Ketkar (an excellent student in my inorganic chemistry class), we now have an online tool that you can use to "pull" a vertical line across each Tanabe-Sugano diagram and read off the intersecting E/B values. This should make the process easier and more intuitive for students. Please credit Rajas when using in your classes!
This literature discussion is in honor of Dr. Josh Figueroa, recipient of the 2026 F. Albert Cotton Award in Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry. Josh has done some tremendous work with isocyanide ligands and this paper is but a brief glimpse into this field. The complexes of interest contain carbonyl ligands and isocyanide ligands, so there are plenty of opportunities for students to use group theory to predict the number of IR-active vibrations for these ligands.
I was lecturing along today, teaching the basics of the theory and how to interpret Tanabe-Sunago diagrams, and I got to my slides where I show them how to calculate ∆o from Co(en)3, and it just fell apart. I had done V(III) as a first example, and then I wanted the students to practice the calculations, but my slides were not up to the task. I thought to myself, in the moment, this would be a good opportunity to do an in-class activity, I should write it. So, in the spirit of making next year easier, I did. I have not used this in class, but I wish I had had it this morning.
This literature discussion is based on a short JACS communication reporting the first isolable Sc(II) carbonyls (not a typo) and isocyanides. The paper discusses some standard synthesis and characterization while exploring a more fundamental question regarding why Sc, a d-block metal, is considered a rare-earth and when it stops reacting analogously to the rare-earth metals. The LO focuses on ye olde carbonyl stretching frequencies and back-bonding and makes a nice follow up to an introduction to that concept. It tries to make students explicitly connect electron configuration to changes
This is a literature-based end of semester project. After a semester of introducing literature in the form of typical literature discussions, this assignment is given to small groups. It may be easily amended or added to. Each group is provided with a paper and accompanying questions that are similar to the literature discussions they have done over the semester. They then must use these guiding questions to assemble a presentation to the class. The topics chosen and the guiding questions are designed to provide students with a taste of the many areas of inorganic chemistry that are no
This activity has students make observations on a series of metal complexes with varying geometries and electronic structures (tetrahedral vs octahedral, d7 vs d0). They are then led to develop hypotheses to explain the differences in their spectra based on crystal field theory and their understanding of selection rules. Finally, students inspect theoretical calculations to determine whether their hypotheses based on observation are supported by theory.