This literature discussion LO was created for the ACS National Award Winners 2023 . Dr. Robert Gilliard was the recipient of the 2023 Harry Gray Award for Creative Work in Inorganic Chemistry by a Young Investigator.
Chip Nataro (Lafayette College) hosts a live discussion covering the favorite labs that people teach. The discussion somewhat evolved into a conversation on "so, you are teaching inorganic lab for the first time...what do you do?"
Stanley-Gray, Zhang, and Venkataraman from UMass Amherst mined the Cambridge Structural Database to put together graphics that show trends for coordination geometry, distribution of oxidation states, overall coordination geometry, and coordination geometry with specific ligands to understand the influence of ligand on geometry.
In SLiThEr #39 Chip Nataro (Lafayette University) introduces us to the discussion LOs he uses in his senior-level inorganic course and the topics covered.
This paper describes the use of a catalytic nickel system for the hydrodefluorination of aryl amides. While organofluorine compounds are extremely useful because of their unique properties, there are growing concerns about the impact of these compounds on the environment. Carbon-fluorine bonds are extremely strong, and so getting them to react is a significant challenge for chemists.
Descriptive chemistry of the main group elements with some emphasis on the non-metals. Transition metal compounds: aspects of bonding, spectra, and reactivity; complexes of n-acceptor ligands; organometallic compounds and their role in catalysis; metals in biological systems; preparative, analytical, and instrumental techniques.
From the course catalog: The chemistry of the Main Group elements and the transition metals are studied with emphasis on the properties, structures, and reactivities of these elements and their compounds.
RSC has a series of chemistry games that can be downloaded from their website. The link here is specifically for games related to transition metals. There are three games (a Jeopardy! style game, a Password-style game and a Taboo-style game). The game formats could easily be adapted to other content. You may need to sign up for a free instructor account to access the resources.
This literature discussion was created to accompany the coordination chemistry chapter of a foundation-level inorganic course. It introduces the concept of C-H agostic interactions.