A national survey of inorganic chemists explored the self-reported topics covered in in-depth inorganic chemistry courses at the postsecondary level; an in-depth course is defined by the American Chemical Society's Committee on Professional Training as a course that integrates and covers topics that were introduced in introductory and foundation…

A national survey of inorganic chemists explored the self-reported topics covered in foundation-level courses in inorganic chemistry at the postsecondary level; the American Chemical Society's Committee on Professional Training defines a foundation course as one at the conclusion of which, "a student should have mastered the vocabulary,…

This work describes a convenient and reliable laboratory experiment in nanochemistry that is flexible and adaptable to a wide range of educational settings. The rapid preparation of yellow colloidal silver nanoparticles is achieved by glucose reduction of silver nitrate in the presence of starch and sodium citrate in gently boiling water, using…

The plan view is used in crystallography and materials science to show the positions of atoms in crystal structures. However, it is not widely used in teaching general chemistry. In this contribution, we introduce the plan view, and show these views for the simple cubic, body-centered cubic, face-centered cubic, hexagonal close packed, CsCl, NaCl,…

Compared to studies on school students' understanding of various topics in the sciences, studies involving university students have received relatively less attention in the science education literature. In this study, we investigated university students' understanding of transition metals chemistry, a topic in inorganic chemistry, which…

Asymmetric transfer hydrogenation is an important transformation for the production of fine chemicals. Traditionally, platinum group metals are used to catalyze this reaction, but recent pressure for greener practices has driven the development of base-metal catalysts. Due to the growing interest in this area of research, the underlying concepts…

The organometallic complex Fe[subscript 2](µ-S[subscript 2])(CO)[subscript 6] has interesting biological implications. The concepts of bio-organometallic chemistry are rarely discussed at the undergraduate level, but this experiment can start such a conversation and, in addition, teach valuable synthetic techniques. The lab experiment takes a…

Chunk-based strategy and mnemonics have been developed to write ground state electron configurations of elements, which is a routine exercise for the higher secondary (pre-university) level general chemistry students. To assimilate a better understanding of the nature of chemical reactions, an adequate knowledge of the periodic table of elements…

The stretching modes of ML[subscript "x"] complexes have the same symmetry as the atomic orbitals on M that are used to form its s bonds. In the exercise suggested here, the atomic orbitals are used to derive the form of the stretching modes without the need for formal group theory. The analogy allows students to help understand many…

In the context of growing empirical evidence to lack of clear understanding of the language of the science content, undesirable student outcomes including difficulty in learning science and a lack of interest with their science content area, and chemistry being particularly loaded with specialized terminology of its own, this study analyzed the…

An upper-level undergraduate or beginning graduate project is described in which students obtain the Lennard-Jones 6-12 potential parameters for Ne[subscript 2] and Ar[subscript 2] from ab initio calculations and use the results to express pairwise interactions between the atoms in clusters containing up to N = 60 atoms. The students use simulated…

In this study, a computational molecular orbital theory experiment was implemented in a first-semester honors general chemistry course. Students used the GAMESS (General Atomic and Molecular Electronic Structure System) quantum mechanical software (as implemented in ChemBio3D) to optimize the geometry for various small molecules. Extended Huckel…

As part of a laboratory course, undergraduate students were asked to use baker's yeast cells as biotemplate in preparing TiO[subscript 2] powders and to test the photocatalytic activity of the resulting materials. This laboratory experience, selected because of the important environmental implications of soft chemistry and photocatalysis, provides…

Worldwide, more than 85% of all chemical products are manufactured with the help of catalysts. Virtually all transition metals of the periodic table are active as catalysts or catalyst promoters. Catalysts are divided into homogeneous catalysts, which are soluble in the reaction medium, and heterogeneous catalysts, which remain in the solid state.…

A simple synthesis is proposed from inexpensive reactants of a copper(I) derivative that exhibits strong photoluminescence and, in the crystalline form, exhibits strong triboluminescence. This laboratory provides an opportunity for introducing students to the phenomenon of triboluminescence. (Contains 1 scheme and 4 figures.)