Although I’m a solid state chemist, I still find it difficult to teach the visualization of solid state structures. I’m interested in any tool that helps my students visualize solids. My experience is that the more representations students can master, the more likely they are to find one that helps them understand solid state structures.
I’ve used many tools. These include
We do not cover extended solids (solid state materials) in our general chemistry program. With the exception of students who have taken a course in materials science, Inorganic Chemistry I is the first time our students have encountered solid state structure. Although they have built some visualization skills by working with molecules and symmetry, they do not have robust 3D visualization abilities and have trouble using the language of solid state chemistry (unit cells, packing, filling holes, coordination number, etc…) in the context of structure.
Chapter 2 from George Stanley's organometallics course, Lewis Base ligands
this chapter covers halides, oxygen and nitrogen donor ligands
The powerpoint slides contain answers to some of the in-class exercises, so those are behind the "faculty only" wall. I share these with students after the class, but not before.
Everyone is more than welcome to edit the materials to suit their own uses, and I would appreciate being notified of any mistakes that are found.
This is an LO for the collection of organometallics LOs by George Stanley. Adam Johnson is curating the material that was written by George.
For many years, George hosted his organometallics lecture notes, powerpoint slides, and handouts, on his personal website at LSU. He always wanted that material available to the public. Recently, they moved to a CMS and that material is no longer available. Adam is working with George to get the 2016-2017 version of his materials up on VIPEr for everyone to use.
The lecture notes are freely available to all.
chapter 1 of George Stanley's Organometallics course: Introduction, Orbitals, Electron counting
This chapter is an overview of the field, with an emphasis on electron counting
The powerpoint slides contain answers to some of the in-class exercises, so those are behind the "faculty only" wall. I shares these with students after the class, but not before.
everyone is more than welcome to edit the materials to suit their own uses, and I would appreciate being notified of any mistakes that are found.
This LO grew out of my interest in understanding (deeply) the machinery behind the Evans method calculations. I did these calculations as a grad student to characterize my compounds, and I teach it in both my lecture and lab. Currently I use the metal acac synthesis lab to motivate the problem.
After I teach my students about magnetism and magnetic properties in coordination compounds, I spend a day showing how the data is collected and analyzed. I teach them about the Gouy balance, the Evans method of determining magnetism by NMR, and SQUID magnetometry. I also show them real data that I collected as an undergraduate or graduate student, and have them interpret and analyze it.
The only experiment that we can do locally is the Evans method, so I spend more time on this technique. We use the method during the metal acac laboratory.
This literature discussion focuses on a paper from the Angelici lab that examines the heat of protonation of [CpʹIr(PR3)(CO)] compounds. The compounds presented in the paper provide good introductory examples for electron counting in organometallic compounds. The single carbonyl ligand in these compounds provide an excellent probe to monitor the electron richness at the metal center which is impacted by the electron donor ability of the ligands.
This is a short worksheet that guides students through simple metal lattices (SCP, CCP, HCP) and how filling holes in these lattices results in ionic lattices (NaCl, CsCl, fluorite, etc.).
The worksheet was used as an in-class activity after students had read about the material in the text. This activity is probably suitable for first-year students, though I used it with juniors/seniors.
Students work in groups to derive the ligand-field diagram for a square-pyramidal vanadium(III) oxo complex using octahedral V(III) as a starting point. The activity helps students to correlate changes in orbital energies as a function of changing ligands and geometry as well as rationalizing why certain geometries can be particularly good (or bad) for particular complexes. The activity also helps students see why oxo complexes of early metals are frequently best described as triple bonds.