Course Materials
assignments | blog | course materials | home | links | syllabus
Course Materials
This page contains links to some of the material you have been provided with in class. In cases where the material was sourced from the web, the original links are provided; class versions are usually an abbreviated form. Notes presented in class are not reproduced here; if you have missed lectures, you will need to obtain these off a classmate.
Many of the files here are in pdf format (marked with 
). Get Adobe Reader via the button
below if your computer is not already so equipped.
- The Actinides.
Download the handout ().
- Relativistic effects in heavy
metal chemistry are typically treated in cursory
fashion by textbooks, if at all. A reasonably accessible
account can be found in a short
review (LARGE )
by Pyykkö.
- Struggling to draw those accursed polyhedra?
Check out this drawing lesson () and
get practising.
- The Heavy Transition Metals.
Download the handout ().
Alternative representations of enthalpy of atomization
across the d-block are available from WebElements.
See an MO diagram and representations
of the orbitals for metal-metal multiple bonds.
Several of the pictures in the handout came from
an article in Chemical Communications called "Bringing
inorganic chemistry to life". Also see
Achim Muller's website (select "Structures";
you'll need Chime to interact with them).
- The Lanthanides. A chapter from Descriptive Inorganic Chemistry by
Rayner-Canham & Overton can be downloaded for free
from the publisher's site; "The Rare Earth and Actinoid Elements" (). This provides some useful background reading on the lanthanides and actinides.
Download the lanthanide handout (); also check out the Orbitron.
Learn more about term symbols, Hund's rules and Russell-Saunders coupling at the HyperPhysics site. If you'd like some background reading on term symbols, download these 3 pages (large ) from Housecroft & Sharp. Intraconfigurational f-f transitions (formally forbidden) are responsible for the (weak) colour of Ln(III) ions; check out the relative magnitude of the splittings due to electron-electron repulsion, spin-orbit coupling, and the external field (induced by the ligands) in this diagram for f2 ions ().
- Chemical Data. Lots of information available on ChemSoc's Visual Elements site. Chemical data for individual elements can be obtained by following the data link from the web page belonging to that element. For example, go to http://www.chemsoc.org/viselements/pages/pdf/yttrium.pdf for yttrium; change "yttrium" to the name of whatever element you are interested in.
- Periodic Table. Reproduced (though often inaccurately) in nearly all chemistry textbooks and many versions are available on the net.
I recommend Mark Winter's scrupulously up-to-date Printable Periodic Table ();
this is the PT you will be provided with in midterms and for the final exam.
- Click here for materials pertaining to the main group chemistry section of the course (Dr. Hicks).
© JS McIndoe, Department of Chemistry, University of Victoria. Updated 28 March, 2008.