1FLO: Relating Electronic Spectra and Ligand Field Strength of [NiX4]2- Anions
Description
This 1FLO asks students to interpret an electronic spectrum of 5 NiX4
Zinc-Zinc Bonds (Expanded and Updated)
Description
This paper in Science reports the synthesis of decamethyldizincocene, a stable compound of Zn(I) with a zinc-zinc bond. In the original LO, the title compound and the starting material, bis(pentamethylcyclopentadienyl)zinc, offer a nice link to metallocene chemistry, electron counting, and different modes of binding of cyclopentadienyl rings as well as more advanced discussions of MO diagrams.
Helping Students with Visual Impairments See Colors
Description
I have had some students in class have a hard time identifying colors (flame tests, solution color, acid-base indicators, etc.) because of a visual impairment. There are many cell-phone apps that are helpful in aiding these students. "Pixel Picker" allows the students to load a picture from a device (cell phone, ipad). This is helpful because students are now dealing with a "frozen" image. Moving the cross-hair to different parts of the picture changes the R-G-B values. The "Color Blind Pal" app uses a more qualitative approach.
CompChem 05: Infrared, Thermochemistry, UV-Vis, and NMR
Description
This is the fifth in a series of exercises used to teach computational chemistry. It has been adapted, with permission, from a Shodor CCCE exercise (http://www.computationalscience.org/ccce). It uses the WebMO interface for drawing structures and visualizing results. WebMO is a free web-based interface to computational chemistry packages (www.webmo.net).
Guided Literature Discussion of “Deca-Arylsamarocene: An Unusually Inert Sm(II) Sandwich Complex”
Description
This Guided Literature Discussion was assigned as a course project, and is the result of work originated by students Christopher Lasterand Patrick Wilson. It is based on the article “Deca-Arylsamarocene: An Unusually Inert Sm(II) Sandwich Complex” by Niels J. C.
Guided Literature Discussion of “Mechanism of the Platinum(II)-Catalyzed Hydroamination of 4-Pentenylamines”
Description
This Guided Literature Discussion was assigned as a course project, and is the result of work originated by students Jana Forster and Kristofer Reiser. It is based on the article “Mechanism of the Platinum(II)-Catalyzed Hydroamination of 4-Pentenylamines” by Christopher F. Bender, Timothy J. Brown, and Ross A. Widenhoefer in Organometallics 2016 35 (2), 113-125.
5-ish Slides about Enemark-Feltham Notation
Description
This is a basic introduction to Enemark-Feltham that can be used in conjunction with any literature that has Iron nitrosyls in it. I made this as a follow up to the work that came ouf of the 2018 VIPEr workshop in UM-Dearborn.
Using IR Frequencies to Compare Bond Strengths via Harmonic Oscillator Model
Description
Inorganic chemists often use IR spectroscopy to evaluate bond order of ligands, and as a means of determining the electronic properties of metal fragments.
The Preparation and Characterization of Nanoparticles
Description
This is a nanochemistry lab I developed for my Junior and Senior level Inorganic Chemistry course. I am NOT a nano/matertials person, but I know how important nanochemistry is and I wanted to make something where students could get an interesting introduction to the area. The first time I ran this lab was also the first time I made gold nanoparticles ever!
We do not have any surface/nano instrumentation here (AFM, SEM/TEM, DLS, etc... we can access them at other universities off-campus but that takes time and scheduling), so that was a key limitation in making this lab.
Introduction to Pulsed Gradient Spin Echo DOSY
Description
Pulsed Gradient Spin Echo (PGSE) DOSY is a NMR technique used for determining the hydrodynamic radius of a molecule in solution by measuring the rate of diffusion. This technique requires a standard, usually tetrakis(trimethylsilyl)silane (TMSS). This activity will cover the basics of how PGSE works and includes built in animations to demonstrate how the nuclear magnetization is affected. Each slide has comments explaining the content for the user's convenience.