The literature discussion is based on one of the early papers from the Chirik group (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2004, 126, 14688). In this communication, the coordination of N2 to a series of (C5H4R)2Ti fragments is examined. Being a communication, it is very short and that helps make it less intimidating for undergraduates. But don't be fooled, it is very rich in the fundamental concepts of orgnaometallic chemistry.
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
A guided inquiry activity where students use group theory and character tables to practice determining reducible representations for all atoms and the individual bonds (like CO stretches). The students then reduce the representation, determine which are vibrational modes, and then determine which are IR active using the character table. For the second portion, they practice using this approach to differentiate between two metal isomers.
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.
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.
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.
I used this as an in class activity but it may work better as a problem set for your class. I had the students read the pertinent chapters of the textbook which go through symmetry and molecular vibrations, including using both stretches and cartesian axes as bases. In class, I divided the students up into four groups. Each group did one of the problems for 30 minutes and during the last 20 minutes of class, they reported out their solution. The students had not seen the Hooke’s law in the textbook so I included it as part of the activity.
This is an in-class activity I made for my students in a Junior/Senior-level one-quarter inorganic course.
Unfortunately it was waaay too long for the 1.5 h class (i gave them about 45 min). I recommend taking this and adapting it to a take-home exercise or homework set, which is probably what I will do this coming year.
Students used Otterbein to look at various structures, starting with low symmetry, working up to very high symmetry structures. I had them go through the "challenge" so they couldn't see the keys at first, but then go back to check their answers.
In this activity, a pair of students are show an object or molecule and are asked to determine the point group before their competitor.