This literature article covers a range of topics introduced in a sophomore level course (confinement/particle-in-a-box, spectroscopy, kinetics, mechanism) and would serve as a an end-of-course integrated activity, or as a review activity in an upper level course.
This literature discussion is based on a paper describing the ligand-based reductive elimination of a diphosphine from a thorium compound (Organometallics, 2017, ASAP). The thorium compound contains two bidentate NHC ligands providing an opportunity to discuss the coordination of these ligands. The ligand-based reduction is very subtle and would be challenging for students to pick up without some guidance. The compound undergoing reductive elimination also presents an excellent introduction into magnetic nonequivalence and virtual coupling.
A novel family of nonadentate ligands based on the (5,6-diphenyl-1,2,4-triazin-3-yl)-picolinamide donor moiety has been synthesized from simple starting materials in high yield and purity.
This problem set was designed to be an in-class activity for students to practice applying their knowledge of metal-metal bonding (as discussed in the previous lecture) to recently published complexes in the literature. In this activity, complexes from four papers by Christine M. Thomas and coworkers are examined to give students practice in electron counting (CBC method), drawing molecular orbitals, and fundamental organometallic reactions.
I just stumbled on this site while refreshing myself on the use of Slater's rules for calculating Zeff for electrons. There are a variety of calculators on there including some for visualizing lattice planes and diffraction, equilibrium, pH and pKa, equation balancing, Born-Landé, radioactive decay, wavelengths, electronegativities, Curie Law, solution preparation crystal field stabilization energy, and more.
I checked and it calculated Zeff correctly but I can't vouch for the accuracy of any of the other calculators.
This is a great new textbook by George Luther III from the University of Delaware. The textbook represents the results of a course he has taught for graduate students in chemical oceanography, geochemistry and related disciplines. It is clear that the point of the book is to provide students with the core material from inorganic chemistry that they will need to explain inorganic processes in the environment.
You can find the virtual issue with our editorial and all of the papers here.
Literature discussion about the first examples of molecular hydrogen complexes isolated by Gregory J. Kubas in the early 80s. The questions are divided into groups with two levels of difficulty.
The more basic group of questions includes topics on:
1) Coordination Chemistry: electron count, geometry, oxidation state, orbital interactions, types of ligands, binding modes, cis/trans and fac/mer isomers.
2) Symmetry elements and point groups.
3) Basic concepts on spectroscopy: NMR, Raman, IR, UV/Vis, XANES, EXAFS, neutron and X-ray diffraction
This activity guides students into building a Molecular Orbital diagram, which focuses on metal-centered orbitals of mostly d character, for a square pyramidal complex that includes different types of ligands. Students are then asked to "fill" the resulting orbitals with metal d electrons, and examine the stability of the complex.
Electron counting exercise motivated by a recent paper (J. Am. Chem.