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This literature discussion was prepared as part of the 2025 ACS awards collection in honor of Gary J. Schrobilgen, winner of the M. Frederick Hawthorne Award in Main Group Inorganic Chemistry. The award citation states, "For advances in the synthetic chemistries of Group 13–18 elements that encompass strong oxidizers; hypervalent, high-oxidation-state species; and ring, cage, and cluster polyatomic anions." (C&E News) Professor Schrobilgen has a storied career of working with main group compounds. While there were many excellent options, this literature discussion focuses on one of his papers looking at compounds of Xenon (paper doi). Compounds of the noble gases often come as a surprise to students, and this provides a wonderful opportunity for students to learn about these interesting (and often explosive!!!) compounds. It also provides a good dive into hypervalency while managing to pull in NMR and group theory.
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| The learning object | 29.58 KB |
In this literature discussion students will
- learn that compounds can be made with noble gases.
- appreciate bonding in hypervalent main group molecules.
- apply knowledge from general chemistry and apply it to these unusual molecules.
- use group theory and relate it to vibrational spectroscopy.
- consider non-proton NMR.
- briefly discuss computational results.
This learning object has not been tested in class. The author does think it may serve as the final exam (or at least a significant portion of it) for a spring 2025 sophomore inorganic course.
Evaluation
None have been developed.