Chemistry 250: Inorganic Chemistry for Engineers

Course Description: Chemistry 250 (2) Inorganic Chemistry: Chemistry of Selected groups of inorganic compounds considered in relation to industrial processes and the environment.

Prerequisite: Chemistry 151 or Chemistry 154 or equivalent

Course Outline:

1. Metals (~ 14 lectures)

Occurrence and Industrial Uses, an overview:

• preparations, structures, bonding,
• reactions and properties
• complex formation and sequestering
  • structures, nomenclature
  • stability constants, solubility products, redox properties
• commercially important sequestering agents
• toxic metals and the environment
• chemical equilibria in liquid/liquid and liquid/solid multiphase systems
• influence of pH on solubility and complex formation
  • applications to:
    • electrochemical processes, corrosion
    • extraction and separation of metals
    • water treatment
    • molecular sieves
• organometallics, including hydrides and carbonyls
• applications to catalysis

2. Non-Metals (~ 10 lectures)

• An overview of chemical periodicity and the fundamentals of the structure and properties (melting and boiling points, solubility, colour, stability, toxicity, etc…) of compounds of the non-metallic elements.
• Preparations, structures, reactions and properties of representative compounds and materials
  • special emphasis on the elements: H, C, Si, N, P, O, S, Cl
• Applications to energy supply, fertilizer, pulp ands paper, oil and gas, ceramics, explosives, polymer, detergent and the chemical industries generally and in environmental chemistry (air and water quality)
• Chemical equilibria in gas/liquid, gas/solid and gas/liquid/solid multiphase systems

Textbook:

Required: none

Recommended reference books:

S. Zumdahl, Chemical Principals, 2nd ed., Heath Publishing, 1995
Cotton, F.A., Wilkinson, G. and Gaus, P.L. Basic Inorganic Chemistry. Wiley, 1987.
Huheey, Inorganic Chemistry, Principles of Structure and Reactivity, 3rd ed. Harper and Row, 1983