Henrickson's Chemistry Site

Chemistry 420 Inorganic Chemistry

419 TCCW 745-6238

charles.henrickson@wku.edu

www.wku.edu\~henrich\home.htm (web site)

1 final exam (ACS) 100 points

4 problem assignments 300 points total

The course outline which follows presents a semester filled with inorganic chemistry. The units are not necessarily covered in the sequence presented and some topics will be covered quickly while bonding, acid-base chemistry and transition metal chemistry will take up most of the term. I will use quite a few handouts to supplement material in the text. There will be several reading assignments.

-Comparison of inorganic systems with organic systems

-Historically significant events in inorganic chemistry

II. Atomic Structure

-The periodic law and the periodic table

-The classic experiments, subatomic particles and the Bohr atom (brief)

-The Schrodinger equation and the hydrogen atom

-orbitals, subshells, principal shells, quantum numbers

-shielding, Z_eff, polyelectronic atoms and the Aufbau Principle

-Trends in ionization energy, electron affinity, atomic and ionic radii

III. Covalent Bonding I Valence Bond Theory

-Lewis Structures, formal charge, electroneutrality principle, resonance

-Expanded octets, hybridization, hyperconjugation, BAl and BeMg

-VSEPR and structure modifications

-Electronegativity (Pauling, Mulliken, Allred-Rochow), oxidation numbers

-Bond and molecular polarity

-Intermolecular forces

IV. Ionic Bonding

-Prototype structures, radius ratios

-Covalency in "ionic" compounds, Fajan's Rules, resultant structural effects

-Close-packing structures, excluded volume

-Lattice energy: Born-Meyer and Born-Haber calculations

-Factors affecting ionic radii

V. Symmetry and Group Theory

-Symmetry elements and symmetry operations

-Point group classification, Schoenflies notation

-Character tables, irreducible representations

-Identifying equivalent atoms and chirality

-(Application of group theory to vibrational spectroscopy is done in the

accompanying laboratory course, Chem 476.)

VI. Covalent Bonding II - Molecular Orbital Theory

-Nature of the molecular orbital, H₂⁺ and H₂, the overlap integral, s.

-Photoelectron spectroscopy

-The homonuclear diatomics

-Heteronuclear diatomics, HF and CO

-The quad bond, HOMO and LUMO, change in bond length with reduction

-Symmetry-Adapted molecular orbitals

VII. Metals and Metallic Bonding

-Band theory

-Conduction, insulation, semiconduction

-Doping, diodes, rectifiers

VIII. Acid-Base Chemistry

-Arrhenius, Bronsted-Lowry, Lewis, Solvent System

-Role of the solvent, leveling effects

-Quantifying acidity and basicity, thermodynamic measurements

-E and C numbers

-Hard-Soft Acid-Base

-Sigma and Pi acids, Sigma and Pi bases, stabilization of oxidation states

IX. Coordination Chemistry I Bonding

-Werner and Jorgenson, composition, structure and nomenclature

-Ligands

-Early valence bond ideas, O_h, T_d and D_4h species

-Crystal Field Theory, CFSE, high spin and low spin complexes

-Ligand Field Theory (molecular orbital approach)

-Jahn-Teller effect

-Spectrochemical Series

(Most spectral work, including use of Tanabe-Sugano diagrams, is done in the

accompanying laboratory course, Chemistry 476.)

(Magneto chemistry is done in the accompanying laboratory course.)

X. Coordination Chemistry II Structure, Isomerism

-Coordination Numbers 2, 4, 5, 6 and 8

-Optical, geometric and linkage isomerism

-Chelate ligands and the chelate effect, crypts, crown ethers

XI. Coordination Chemistry III Substitution

-Inert versus stable; labile versus instability

-Dissociative, Associative, Interchange and conjugate base mechanisms

-Trans-effect in square planar species; Cis-effect

XII. Organometallic Chemistry

-18 e rule, limitations and applications

-Carbonyl, nitrosyl, olefin and cyclopenadienyl complexes

-Carbonyl insertion

-Fluxional species, pseudorotation, spectral clues