CH2501 – Inorganic Chemistry 2
Lecturers:
Dr J-W. Bos, Dr B. A. Chalmers, Dr P. Kilian, D J. A. McNulty, Dr A. N. Price and Dr A. Stasch.
Module Convenor: Dr J. A. McNulty
Aims:
To develop, via lectures, tutorials, a group presentation and laboratory classes, students’ knowledge and understanding of the fundamentals of Inorganic Chemistry as a preparation for the advanced study of Inorganic Chemistry during the Honours programmes.
Descriptive Main Group Chemistry – Dr P. Kilian and Dr A. Stasch
Duration:
17 hours
Aims:
To develop the students’ appreciation of the chemistry, uses and importance of main group elements. To provide a foundation knowledge of reactivity of main group elements on which to build understanding of trends and patterns in inorganic chemistry.
Objectives:
1. To know and understand the occurrence, structures, chemistry and uses of the main group elements.
2. To know the structures, bonding, chemistry, properties and uses of selected compounds of main group elements.
3. To appreciate the importance of reagents based on main group elements in organic synthesis.
4. To understand how concepts of electronic structure, atomic and ionic size, nuclear charge etc. affect the chemistry of these elements, and how they can be used to explain the trends in the periodic table.
5. To apply these concepts and knowledge to solve problems related to elements in these groups.
Transition Metal Chemistry – Dr B. A. Chalmers
Duration:
9 hours
Aims:
To provide a description of the chemistry of the transition metals, building on concepts from previous courses.
Objectives:
1. To understand the trends in properties across the d-block, and how these are differences and similarities between the d and p-blocks.
2. To understand and be able to determine the electronic configuration of d-block ions.
3. To know and understand the different types of ligands, coordination methods, coordination numbers, and geometries (including common distortions) exhibited by the 3d, 4d, and 5d metals, and how these can manifest isomerism.
4. To be able to determine the type of isomerism and number of potential isomers in a d-block complex.
5. To be able to determine the Shielding Constant for any atom or ion using Slater’s Rules.
6. To understand and apply the rules of nomenclature from the IUPAC Red Book for any d-block metal complex.
7. To understand elementary Crystal Field Theory (CFT), including the shapes of the d-orbitals, for octahedral, tetrahedral, square planar, and linear complexes, and to be able to derive Crystal Field Splitting energy level diagrams, including understanding and deriving Crystal Field Stabilization Energy (CFSE)
8. To know the origins of high and low spin complexes and the factors, which influence the spin state of the metal.
9. To know about the origins of magnetism in d-block complexes and be able to utilise and rationalise data provided by magnetic measurements.
10. To know about colour in transition metal complexes, and to be able to understand and utilise and rationalise data provided by UV-vis spectra.
11. To know about the selection rules governing electronic transitions, explain their origins, and rationalise observations
12. To understand the concept of hapticity and how π-orbitals can interact with metal d-orbitals and the consequence of this.
13. To be able to apply the 18-electron rule to d-block complexes.
14. To understand and apply Molecular Orbital theory to systems larger than two atoms, including non-linear systems.
15. To understand and explain the origins of the spectrochemical series with respect to Ligand Field Theory (LFT), and to justify the key differences between LFT and CFT
16. To be able to rationalise and show how different ligands influence the splitting of the d-orbitals in octahedral (ML6, MA4B2) and tetrahedral systems.
17. To have an understand of the role of d-block metals in oxygen transport in biological systems, and the importance of metal-containing proteins and cofactors.
Chemistry in the Solid State – Dr J-W. Bos
Duration:
6 hours
Aims:
To extend the concepts of close-packing to describe the structures of crystalline inorganic compounds. To rationalise why compounds adopt one crystal structure rather than another. To be aware of the origin and nature of defects in inorganic solids.
Objectives:
1. To understand the two basic types of close-packing in solids, and the nature of tetrahedral/octahedral interstices.
2. To be able to describe the structures of simple close-packed inorganic compounds (eg. NaCl, NiAs, ZnS, CaF2, SrTiO3) in terms of filling of octahedral and tetrahedral sites.
3. To become familiar with the concepts of ionic size, radius ratios, oxidation state, cation coordination preferences, in the adoption of particular structure types by particular stoichiometries.
4. To understand the formation of simple defects (eg. Frenkel and Schottky) in ionic solids, and the manipulation of structure and composition of solids via solid-solution formation.
5. To understand the concept of bond-valence and its use in rationalising the structure of simple solids.
f-element Chemistry – Dr A. N. Price
Duration:
6 hours
Aims:
To introduce the chemistry of the f-elements.
Objectives:
1. To understand trends in ionic and metallic radii, preferred oxidation state, and ionisation energies across the f-block.
2. To understand and be able to explain the electronic configuration of f- block metals and ions.
3. To understand the shapes and properties of the f-orbitals and to be able to explain their role in bonding in f-block complexes.
4. To understand and be able to explain differences and similarities between the lanthanoids and actinoids.
5. To understand and be able to explain the differences and similarities between the properties of d- and f-block complexes.
6. To be able to recognise and identify typical coordination geometries for Ln(III) ions across the lanthanoid series.
7. To recognise the types of ligands that typically coordinate f-block ions and understand some simple aqueous chemistry of their salts.
8. To understand and be able to explain the extraction and separation processes that are used to obtain f-block elements.
9. To understand absorption and emission processes in lanthanoid- containing materials, as well as strategies to enhance these.
Inorganic Chemistry 2 Laboratory – Dr J. A. McNulty
Duration:
37 hours School of Chemistry (27 hours of laboratory work + 5 hours of workshops + 5 hours of pre-laboratory activities)
Aims:
The inorganic laboratory class consists of a series of experiments designed to be completed in one, two or four sessions. The course is designed to illustrate and reinforce concepts covered in the lecture- based part of the course. The students will be introduced to key synthetic techniques and will regularly employ spectroscopic techniques to determine the outcome of experiments.
Objectives:
To perform three experiments that include: Main Group chemistry, transition metal chemistry and crystal field theory. To become familiar with equipment and standard laboratory techniques for carrying out reactions and purification of products. To gain experience in recording spectroscopic data needed for the identification of compounds (NMR, IR, UV-vis, melting point, conductivity, magnetic susceptibility…). To complete two data handling exercises using data provided. To take part in a seminar on the interpretation of the spectroscopic data (week 1) and to complete the associated assessment. To take part in pre-laboratory activities, including Safety Test, introducing key concepts and techniques of the experiment.
Main Group Chemistry: Synthesis of triphenylphosphine sulfide
Transition Metal Chemistry: Preparation of a photoluminescent and triboluminescent copper(I) complex
Crystal field theory: Exploring the spectrochemical series through the synthesis of copper complexes
Solid-state chemistry: Solid-state structure visualisation seminar