Miessler and Tarr is an inorganic textbook which is is best suited to an upper-division one-semester inorganic course, though there is more material than can be covered in a single semester, so some choice of topics is necessary. It is very well suited for a course oriented around structure, bonding, and reaction chemistry of transition metal compounds, but is very limited in its treatment of solids, main-group, descriptive chemistry, and bioinorganic. Pchem would be helpful but is not necessary. In particular, the treatment of MO theory is very in-depth. The quality of end-of chapter p
Housecroft and Sharpe (Inorganic Chemistry, 3ed): This is a comprehensive inorganic textbook designed primarily for students at the Junior/Senior level. P-Chem would not be needed as a prerequisite for this text, but would be helpful. It includes both theoretical and descriptive material along with special topics, enough for a two semester course though it is easily adaptable to a one-semester "advanced inorganic" course by choosing only some topics. It is written in a clear and generally readable style and the full-color graphic contribute to student understanding.
This communication describes the first example of a discrete tetrahedral tellurate ion, analogous to sulfate and selenate. This assignment was used as an introduction to the inorganic literature early in the semester. Pre-discussion questions were adapted from the "How to Read an Inorganic Paper" learning object by Hilary Eppley. In class discussion focused on communications vs. full papers, the essentials of X-ray crystallographic information, multinuclear NMR, and the periodic trends discussed in this paper.
The students prepare a short proposal outlining their desired target and why they want to make it. Chemicals are ordered, and during the last 3-4 weeks of the semester, the students carry out their synthesis. The writeup is as a paper submtited to the journal Inorganic Chemistry using the template from the journal web page.
This paper discusses the synthesis and characterization of a novel compound of nitrogen. The pre-discussion assignment asks students draw a Lewis structure for the N5+ cation, and using the tools of group theory, conduct a normal mode vibrational analysis, comparing the results to the experimental Raman spectral data.