423/523 Assignments

Bis(benzene)chromium

Assignments

Assignments will be given out in class on a regular basis, and these will be reproduced here. Assignments will not be graded but it is strongly recommended that they are attempted by all students. In-class tutorials will go over the problem sets.

• Final exam from 2009 ().
• Final exam from 2012 ().
• Problem set 8 ().
• Short model answers ().
• Here are a few old midterms. Note there have been some changes in the course material and ordering. We covered DGM rules and migration reactions earlier this year, and material on green chemistry was added to the course.
  • Midterm #2 from 2012 ().
    • Short model answers ().
    Midterm #2 from 2009 ().
    • Short model answers ().
  • Midterm #2 from 2005 ().
    • Short model answers ().
• Problem set 7 ().
• Short model answers ().
• Problem set 6 ().
  • Short model answers ().
• Midterm #1 model answers ().
• Problem set 5 ().
  • Short model answers ().
• Midterm #1 from 2009 ().
  • Short model answers ().
• Problem set 4 ().
• Short model answers ().
• Problem set 3 ().
  • Short model answers ().
• Problem set 2 (): more problems mostly relating to the 18-electron rule.
  • Short model answers ().
• The application of the 18-electron rule: some example problems ().
  • Answers, no working ().

Wiki Article

The Wikipedia is an amazing, collaboratively-assembled resource that has a remarkable amount of scientific content. We're going to contribute to it during this class. You will be divided into groups and asked to jointly author a Wikipedia article on a selected topic in organometallic chemistry (for 423 students: of my choice). You will be judged jointly for the finished article, though your mark will be modified according to your contribution relative to others in your group (wikis keep track of each change, and I will be asking you for an assessment of your own and others contributions to the article).

Undergraduate groups will be of 3-5 students. Graduate student groups will be of 1-3 students (i.e. graduate students may opt to do a solo project, but of course they'll have to do all the work themselves!), and will be expected to propose a topic themselves. The topic is subject to my approval, so don't try picking one that already exists! I encourage grad students to pick a topic close to their research area if possible, and to maintain it after the course is done.

Some of the topics that will be offered to undergraduates:

- direct arylation
- catalytic hydrodehalogenation
- C-F bond activation
- gas-phase organometallic chemistry

...and more to come depending on numbers.

The first thing you will have to do is to create an account to edit the Wikipedia and to inform me of your username. You and your classmates will edit your page - which will be a subpage of my sandbox - over the course of the term. On completion of the article, I will move the page into the "live" part of the Wikipedia.

All literature references should be to the DOI of an article, to prevent link rot.

You can find your page via this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcannos/sandbox

Here are some of the Wikipedia articles created by students in this class in the past:

- decarboxylative cross-coupling
- operando spectroscopy
- dehydrogenative coupling of silanes
- dehydrogenation of amine-boranes
- ruthenium anti-cancer drugs
- phosphinimide ligands
- metal-centered cycloaddition reactions
- early transition metal pincer complexes 

Presentation (graduate students only)

Towards the end of the term, all graduate (523) students taking the course will be asked to present a 20 minute mini-lecture on a topic in organometallic catalysis. Detailed handouts will be provided to the class.

Tuesday November 25
Jin Yang: Hydrophosphination
Chris Frazee: Catalytic reduction of dinitrogen
Roman Belli: Hydrogenation catalyzed by frustrated Lewis pairs.

Wednesday November 26
Dillon Hofsommer: Ni-catalyzed Kumada reactions
Erica Hong: Wacker process
Robin Theron: Hydroacylation

Friday November 28
Kingsly Wu: ROMP
Lars Yunker: Suzuki reaction
Jane Zhu: Suzuki step polymerization

This lecture will be assessed (20% of your final grade). All of the aspects that make up a quality lecture will be judged, so not just content but clarity of explanation, interest, style, delivery, etc.