In this open-ended activity, students design crystallizations to can see who can grow the biggest crystals of their colorful products. This addition is something that I add to the standard M(acac)₃ syntheses that many of us do as an introductory lab in an upper level course or as a final lab in an introductory type course. Syntheses of the M(acac)₃ starting materials are available in most published inorganic laboratory manuals.

This experiment is a computational supplement to Part B of the tin chemistry described in "Synthesis and Technique in Inorganic Chemistry" (Exp 7; see below for the complete citation).*  Students will optimize and compute IR spectra for the cis and trans and corresponding linkage isomers of tetrachlorbis(dimethylsulfoxide) tin(IV).  A comparison of experimental (IR spectra) and computational data (enthalpies of formation; IR spectra) will aid them in determining the most likely product of this simple synthesis and in identifying the S-O vibrations in their experimental spectrum.

This is a computational/molecular modeling supplement to the synthesis of  [1,3,5-C₆H₃(CH₃)₃]MoCO₃ included in the third edition of  "Synthesis and Technique in Inorganic Chemistry" (see full citation below)*. Students optimize the model and compute an infrared spectrum and compare it to their experimental (solution) spectrum.

*G. S. Giorlami, T. B. Rauchfuss, R. J. Angelici  “Synthesis and Technique in Inorganic Chemistry: A Laboratory Manual”, Third Edition