These slides provide a brief introduction to the concept of electrocatalysis using the glyoximato cobalt catalysts for hydrogen production recently examined by Peters, Gray, and others. They provide a suitable introduction to the topic for students interested in reading the primary literature on these topics.
This learning object was developed at the 2012 NSF sponsored cCWCS VIPEr workshop at UNC-CH where we were fortunate to hear Jillian Dempsey present this research that has appeal to students. This work focuses on an exciting and promising strategy to develop new technology to support a solar energy economy. This literature discussion leads students through a current application in the field of electrocatalysis.
This literature review covers a paper by the Brookhart group in which they describe a very interesting catalytic route for reducing alkyl halides. The paper describes the catalytic mechanism in great detail and shows an unexpected trend in relative reactivities (Br > Cl > I and primary > secondary). One of the primary benefits for using this paper is that it can enable your students to rationalize a mechanism consistent with many different data sets.
This is a literature excercise I used in my upper-level organometallic course to guide students through some of the important points of a detailed organic/organometallic paper. I have found that the first hurdles in some of these papers involve getting students to the point where they can understand (a) what specific reaction is being performed, and (b) what the role of each reagent is. This set of questions includes a mix of material, including some things that are specifically stated in the article and some that are implied or referenced elsewhere. I found that excercises like this one
For many years I have resisted using clickers, mainly because at our university there is no standard universal clicker. I wanted to keep student costs as low as possible but also desired the type of live feedback during a lecture that clicker questions can provide. In both my general chem. (200-300 students) and upper division courses (50-75 students), I now pass out 4 or 5 colored notecards on the first day of class and make sure everyone has one of each color.
I was taught (many years ago) the common misconception that fitting the linearized form of the Eyring equation overstates the error in the intercept because on a 1/T axis, the intercept is at infinite temperature, and the intercept is far from the real data. While researching various methods of data fitting, I stumbled across this great article from the New Journal of Chemistry (New J.
In the two years since this article was published, it has jump-started a large amount of research in the area of cobalt-based catalysts for solar water splitting. The paper describes the electrochemical synthesis and oxygen-evolution capabilities of a Co-phosphate catalyst under very mild conditions. The paper can stimulate discussion of many topics found in the inorganic curriculum, including electrochemistry, semiconductor chemistry, transition metal ion complex kinetic trends, and solid state and electrochemical characterization techniques.
The Interactive Inorganic Challenge Forum is a resource for inorganic chemistry teachers who want to incorporate team learning questions (“Challenges”) into an upper level undergraduate inorganic course. Through this site, teachers can exchange their ideas with others who have used inorganic chemistry Challenges. As a result, students benefit from field-tested group questions.