The set of questions in this literature discussion activity is intended to engage students in reading and interpreting scientific literature and to develop a clear and coherent understanding of agostic interactions.

In this literature discussion, students use a paper from the literature to explore the synthesis, structure, characterization (powder XRD, EDS and TEM) and energetics associated with the production of a metastable wurtzite CoS phase. Students also are asked define key terms and acronyms used in the paper; identify the goal of the experiments and determine if the authors met their goal. They examine the fundamental concepts around the key crystal structures available.  

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.

This LO is a problem-set-style literature discussion that leads students through a critical analysis of an interesting but flawed paper from the recent chemical literature.  Students use the questions to help them work through the paper prior to class, providing plenty of raw material for an in-class discussion about various aspects of the work from a mechanistic organometallic perspective.  The questions help students critically analyze substrate tables, spectroscopic data, and computational results from DFT.

This set of questions is intended to guide students through an excellent article by Jeff Byers and co-workers that describes the us