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NOTES TO INSTRUCTORS
GENERAL
Daryle Busch, president of the
American Chemical Society said "Green chemistry represents the
pillars that hold up our sustainable future. It
is imperative to teach the value of green chemistry to
tomorrow's chemists.”
Because green chemistry is rapidly
becoming the wave of the future, we believe that it is very
important that students are exposed to green chemistry
in many courses across their chemistry
curriculum. These green chemistry modules were
developed by a team of faculty members from the
University of Scranton for the purpose of inserting green
chemistry into specific courses encompassing the
chemistry curriculum. It is our hope that other
instructors will use these modules as models for infusing
green chemistry into their courses. We encourage
instructors to use, modify and copy them according to
their needs for educational purposes, however any commercial
use is prohibited unless permission of the
authors is granted. We ask that you let us know
when and how you use them (cannm1@uofs.edu). This
will aid us in the assessment of the outcomes of this
project.
In order to use the modules we suggest
that you first have your students read the Introduction
to Green
Chemistry
and then the specific module for your course. You may then want to
discuss this material in
class. To aid you in presenting the material in
class, each module is equipped with a set of PowerPoint
slides. You may want to have students make hard
copies of the PowerPoint slides to aid in note taking.
Although each module was developed
for a particular course we encourage instructors to peruse all the
modules and find ways to infuse additional green chemistry
into all the courses you teach. Other efforts
to bring green chemistry into the classroom can be found
at: http://academic.scranton.edu/faculty/CANNM1/greenchemistry.html
TAMLTM Module
This module is designed to be
used in both a descriptive inorganic and an advanced inorganic chemistry
course. In the descriptive course, the module will apply when the
oxidizing power of the halogens is discussed along with general coordination
geometry involving macrocyclic ligands. The phaseout of gaseous chlorine
and chlorine dioxide in favor of greener reactants would be an appropriate
topic of discussion.
In the advanced inorganic course,
the module will be useful when discussing reaction mechanisms and the effects
of ligands upon oxidizing ability of coordination complexes. Traditionally,
Fenton's reagent is used to illustrate the importance of considering the
elementary steps in the course of a reaction. Fenton's reagent consists
of only Fe(II) and hydrogen peroxide. This mixture is capable of
oxidizing many organic substartes that are oxidation-resistant. The
enhanced oxidizing power of this reagent is not readily obvious until the
formation of hydroxyl radical is apparent in the reaction sequence.
The TAMLTM activators discussed in this module are Non-Fenton
based oxidizing agents utilizing tetraamide ligands. These complexes can
be discussed during the portion of the course dealing with macrocyclic
coordination, the EAN rule, and catalysis reactions. No additional
material need be introduced into the course, rather it is suggested that
these TAMLTM activators can be used to discuss the importance
of ligand substituents upon the oxidizing performance of metal complexes
within the broader topic of catalysis.