SLiThErs - Supporting Learning with Interactive Teaching: a Hosted, Engaging Roundtable

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.

Chip Nataro / Lafayette College Thu, 12/17/2020 - 14:18
Moleculuar Computation and Visualization in Undergraduate Education (MoleCVUE)
Description

The MoleCVUE website contains several items that should be of interest to the VIPEr community, especially the activities.  Each activity is designed to be ready to deploy in lecture, laboratory, or as homework.  There are activities covering all of the major subdisciplines of chemistry (some more than others).  Some activities that might be of particular interest to VIPEr are "Group Theory", "VSEPR", and "Electron Configurations of Atoms and Ions".  All of the activities are written to use WebMO, but could be adapted for other systems.  Most activities are doable with the free or demo versi

Kevin Range / Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania Fri, 08/09/2024 - 13:01
Literature Discussion Group Project
Description

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

Wes Farrell / United States Naval Academy Mon, 08/05/2024 - 14:23

Theoretical Analysis of Fe K-edge XANES on Iron Pentacarbonyl

Submitted by Prajay Patel / University of Dallas on Tue, 04/30/2024 - 15:01
Description

This article focuses on a theoretical analysis of K-edge X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure (XANES) of Fe(CO)5 in the D3h and C4v geometries. For the context of a one semester inorganic chemistry / physical inorganic chemistry course, the authors use computational methods and experimental X-ray techniques to generate the XANES spectra of two different geometries of Fe(CO)5. Densities of states are used to show overlap between specific orbitals (Fe p with C p), indicating pi-backbonding.

Orca Computational Chemistry Tutorials (Neese)

Submitted by Amanda Reig / Ursinus College on Thu, 04/04/2024 - 13:53
Description

Frank Neese was honored with the 2024 ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry for outstanding accomplishments in combining high-level theory with experiment to obtain insight into the properties and reactivities of transition-metal complexes and metalloenzymes. 

His major contributions to the field have been through the development and dissemination of his free computational modeling software program ORCA, which is used by thousands of researchers across the fields of inorganic and bioinorganic chemistry.

Geometric Control of C-C RE from a Pt(IV) Pincer Complex

Submitted by Adam Johnson / Harvey Mudd College on Thu, 01/04/2024 - 15:10
Description

When I saw this paper come out, I thought it would make a great teaching paper. It has synthesis, characterization, reaction mechanisms, computational chemistry and it directly impacts catalysis by a thorough examination of the reductive elimination reaction. What are the factors governing the rate of C-C RE? Can geometry (sterics) control reactivity or is it only based on the hybridization (sp2/sp3) of the carbon atom in question (electronics)?

An Exploration of Molecular Dihydrogen Complexes

Submitted by Adam Johnson / Harvey Mudd College on Mon, 11/27/2023 - 14:41
Description

I wanted my organometallic class to explore the bonding and spectroscopy of the Kubas dihydrogen complex without having to spend the time doing the entire literature discussion (which is really great and I have done it many times in the past) because I wanted to do it in only about 20-30 minutes in a 75 minute class period. Most of the questions come from the Kubas literature discussion, which I shortened. The IR and reduced mass calculations come from an LO I wrote about arene activation by Jones and Feher.

Stable Borepinium and Borafluorenium Heterocycles: A Reversible Thermochromic “Switch” Based on Boron–Oxygen Interactions by Robert J. Gilliard Jr.
Description

This literature discussion on the Hot Paper communication in Chemistry, A European Journal; highlights the first examples of borepinium and borfluorenium cations whose optical properties can be tuned and also the very first reported example of thermochromism in these cationic species. R. J. Gilliard, Chem. Eur. J. 2019, 25, 12512. https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.201903348

Niharika K Botcha / Carnegie Mellon University Fri, 06/30/2023 - 10:27

SLiThEr #42: Our Favorite Labs

Submitted by Chip Nataro / Lafayette College on Thu, 11/17/2022 - 08:29
Description

Chip Nataro (Lafayette College) hosts a live discussion covering the favorite labs that people teach. The discussion somewhat evolved into a conversation on "so, you are teaching inorganic lab for the first time...what do you do?"

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