I designed this lab experiment to introduce students to the uses of powder X-ray diffraction in the context of the synthesis of a technologically relevant material. Zinc oxide nanoparticles can be synthesized readily with reagents that are inexpensive and relatively benign with regard to student use and waste disposal. Two experiments described in J. Chem.
This paper, while not fundamentally groundbreaking, serves as a nice introduction to the field of mesoporous materials. I like that it covers synthesis, characterization, and an application of the materials. I have used this paper in our senior seminar course as the basis for discussion of this area of chemistry. Discussion questions cover aspects of sol-gel chemistry, powder diffraction, gas adsorption, IR, solid state NMR, UV-Vis, and catalysis.
This communication from the Journal of the American Chemical Society (J. Am. Chem. Soc.
JMol site http://firstyear.chem.usyd.edu.au/calculators/solid_state.shtml how common inorganic structures are built from the filling of interstitial sites in CCP and HCP lattices.
The site is used as post-work for a hands-on lab about packing (http://firstyear.chem.usyd.edu.au/LabManual/E12.pdf).
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:
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
Here is a fun way to learn about inorganic chemistry! These songs were composed and passed along to me by Tom Mallouk at Penn State with his permission to post here on VIPEr. I Can't Get No Bragg Diffraction was a joint effort put together one year at a Gordon Research Conference on Solid State Chemistry. Sorry, no recording! The tune n-doped, recorded by the Band Edges, covers the electronic structure behind semiconductor devices. Download the lyrics for both and the mp3 file for n-doped! There is a