Energy Nuggets: Wise Energy Use – The Challenge of Nitrogen Fixation

Submitted by Maggie Geselbracht / Reed College on Tue, 06/16/2009 - 01:33
Description
This literature discussion activity is one of a series of “Energy Nuggets,” small curricular units designed to illustrate: The Role of Inorganic Chemistry in the Global Challenge for Clean Energy Production, Storage, and Use.

Fourier Transforms and the Phase Problem

Submitted by Adam Johnson / Harvey Mudd College on Tue, 06/09/2009 - 13:03
Description

At the end of my inorganic course, I teach several "cool" spectroscopic techniques that inorganic chemists use.  These techniques are discussed within the context of bioinorganic chemistry, and I typically cover EXAFS/XANES, X-ray crystallography, EPR and Mössbauer.  

This website introduces (or reviews) Fourier Transforms in a neat graphical way, but most importantly, illustrates the phase problem.  Given the intensities from your crystal and the phases from your model, the phases are more important!  Which is too bad, as we don't have ready access to that information.

Energy Nuggets: MOF’s for CO2 Sequestration

Submitted by Maggie Geselbracht / Reed College on Thu, 06/04/2009 - 03:50
Description
This literature discussion activity is one of a series of “Energy Nuggets,” small curricular units designed to illustrate: The Role of Inorganic Chemistry in the Global Challenge for Clean Energy Production, Storage, and Use.

Introduction to X-ray crystallography

Submitted by Adam Johnson / Harvey Mudd College on Tue, 04/21/2009 - 17:00
Description

At the end of my inorganic course, I teach several "cool" analytical techniques that inorganic chemists use.  These techniques are discussed within the context of bioinorganic chemistry, and I typically cover EXAFS/XANES, X-ray crystallography, EPR and Mössbauer.  I provide this website to the students as supplemental reading material for X-ray crystallography, which is not typically covered in depth in an introductory inorganic text.  The first link is the main website, but I usually only focus on the 2nd and 3rd links which covering the experimental setup for an X-ra

Inorganic Chemistry Spectroscopy Tutorial: Theoretical Principles and Applications

Submitted by Jason Cooke / Department of Chemistry, University of Alberta, Canada on Wed, 04/15/2009 - 16:02
Description

We have developed an online tutorial that demonstrates the fundamental principles and applications of the various types of spectroscopy that students will encounter in the inorganic chemistry laboratory, namely infrared spectroscopy (IR), nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) and UV-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis).  The tutorial has been designed as a stand-alone interactive resource that can either introduce the fundamental aspects of spectroscopy from first principles or serve as a supplement for students who prefer to learn visually in an individual setti

Materials Chemistry: UW MRSEC Library of Slide Shows for Class Presentations

Submitted by Maggie Geselbracht / Reed College on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 17:43
Description

The Interdisciplinary Education Group at the University of Wisconsin Madison Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) has a fabulous website with a wide variety of great resources for teaching about materials and the nanoworld at all levels.  A favorite "corner" of this website that I refer to a lot in my own teaching is the library of so-called Resource Slides on a variety of topics.  These Resource Slides are divided up into 36 topical Slide Shows and include wonderful graphics to use in class presentations.   Slide Shows include:

IR Spectroscopy of Rhodium Carbonyl Clusters

Submitted by Maggie Geselbracht / Reed College on Tue, 04/07/2009 - 02:07
Description
The structures of neutral rhodium carbonyl clusters containing two, four, and six rhodium atoms have been known for some time.  In a recent paper (J. Am. Chem.

Interactive Spreadsheets for Inorganic Chemistry

Submitted by Lori Watson / Earlham College on Sun, 03/08/2009 - 15:28
Description

This web site contains a number of interactive spreadsheets, most of which are applicable to inorganic chemistry (or a physical chemistry class that uses inorganic examples).  Here's the list of the most relevant for most inorganic classes:

 

ABC kinetics - interactively plot concentration versus reaction extent for A, B and C in A -> B -> C by varying k values

House: Inorganic Chemistry

Submitted by Adam Johnson / Harvey Mudd College on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 15:35
Description

House (Inorganic chemistry):  The book is divided into 5 parts:  first, an introductory section on atomic structure, symmetry, and bonding; second, ionic bonding and solids; third, acids, bases and nonaqueous solvents; fourth, descriptive chemistry; and fifth, coordination chemistry.  The first three sections are short, 2-4 chapters each, while the descriptive section (five chapters) and coordination chemistry section (seven chapters covering ligand field theory, spectroscopy, synthesis and reaction chemistry, organometallics, and bioinorganic chemistry.) are longer.  Each chapter includes

Bonding and Electronic Structure of a 14-electron W(II) bound to 4-electron pi-donors

Submitted by Hilary Eppley / DePauw University on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 12:01
Description

This paper is a meaty communication that covers novel bonding of 4 e- π-donors to a 14-electron species. Requires students to apply their knowledge of electron counting and organometallic bonding to ligands that are acting in novel ways.  This also includes exercises dealing with chemical information and general questions that require students to put the science in context.