Application of advanced instrumental and preparative techniques to the study of structure, reactivity, and spectroscopy of inorganic and organic substances including materials. This is a capstone course and includes a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) that runs throughout the semester.
This research-based laboratory series investigates the stoichiometry of metal ion complexes of the Schiff-base ligand salicylaldehyde benzoyl hydrazone (SBH) in both the solid and solution states using gravimetric analysis and UV-VIS spectroscopy.
In this lab we have two standard introduction labs (LUM and POR) and then a full CURE. This was the second time I ran this CURE (the first was Spring 2024).
The CURE is being published as a multi-institution ACS Symposium Series Chapter in 2026, and the materials from the CURE will be hosted in a collection on VIPEr.
Once the chapter is published, I will add the link to it in the description.
This collection is of LOs related to the Multi-Institutional CUREs developed by the authors.
This literature discussion celebrates Dr. Geoffrey W. Coates for being the recipient of the ACS Award in Polymer Chemistry 2026 from the American Chemical Society.
This literature discussion LO was created for the ACS National Award Winners 2026 collection for Dr. Jonas C. Peters, the recipient of the ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry. This LO is based on the article "Terminal Iron–Dinitrogen and Iron–Imide Complexes Supported by a Tris(phosphino)borane Ligand" published in Angewandte Chemie Int. Eng.
This literature discussion is in honor of the work of Shigeyoshi Inoue, winner of the 2026 Frederic Stanley Kipping Award in Silicon Chemistry for “groundbreaking contributions to the synthesis and reactivity of low-valent silicon compounds, and advancing the potential of silicon in metal-free catalysis and small-molecule activation” (https://cen.acs.org/a
This literature discussion comes from a paper in the Turkish Journal of Chemistry (1999, 23, 9-14) https://journals.tubitak.gov.tr/chem/vol23/iss1/2/. In this paper, the authors report spectroscopic data for nine compounds, [M(CO)4(PP)] (M = Cr, Mo or W; PP = dppm, dppe, dppp). This is a very fundamental paper and as such, students are not expected to have had any significant coursework in inorganic chemistry.
This laboratory experiment is a quick and straightforward synthesis of a MoO2(acac)2 complex. The ligand set allows for two possible geometric arrangements: cis and trans. Using IR spectroscopy along with group theory analysis of the Mo-O stretching modes, students can determine which isomer they formed in their synthesis. NMR spectroscopy is also employed, and confirms the geometric arrangement due to the inequivalence of the acac methyl groups.