Premise
This reference is meant for students who are starting out in the area of Organometallic Chemistry as well as those who wish to review and interrelate concepts for their class, Oral Exams or placement tests. The power of this resource lies in its use of hypertextual information. Pick a topic from the index and see how.
This resource assumes a basic grasp of certain chemical principles. A recent course in coordination or Inorganic chemistry is a big help as is an introductory Organic course. Then again, people like Pete Wolczanski and Todd Marder have been known to teach both Group Theory and Organometallics in second semester freshman chemistry!
If you aren't sure where to start, try these three readings first:
- Organometallics Defined
- Coordination Number and Coordination Chemistry Definitions
- Electron Counting and the 18 electron rule
Understanding the material in these last two sections is critical to understanding organometallic chemistry. Once you are adept at counting electrons, you may want to look at the entries on common ligands or move on to oxidative addition and reductive elimination, two of the most common and important reaction mechanisms in organometallic chemistry.
History
I started this site in 1994 when I was an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky. The initial impetus was discovering that our graduate students had to take cumulative examinations, many of which contained organometallic chemistry, but wouldn't necessarily be offered a course in organometallics until their fourth and final semester of cumulative exam opportunities. Therefore, this was an attempt to help students learn the basic concepts they needed to survive in our program.
I soon recognized that this could also be a useful adjunct to my graduate-level course on the topic as well as a handy learning tool for the undergraduates in my research group. Eventually, I realized that this site could also help evangelize the field of Organometallics.
I call Inorganic chemistry the neglected child of undergraduate chemistry. By that I mean that even ACS-certified graduates can obtain a chemistry degree having had only one course (a lab, not a lecture!) devoted to Inorganic chemistry. If students were exposed to Inorganic earlier (and I don't meant naming coordination compounds in General Chemistry; boring and a waste of time) they would see that Organometallics is cool and interesting. They might even realize the incredible importance of the field and even consider doing graduate study in the area. By the time most students are exposed to "real" Inorganic chemistry they have already begun exploring chemical interests in areas already familiar to them (Organic, Analytical etc.).
Over the years, I have received many dozens of thanks and support from students and faculty around the world. Keep them coming; they are fun to get. The site has received a lot of those fun web awards, but I haven't had the time or vanity to compile a list of those. Let me just thank everyone for their support; it makes me want to further expand the OMHTB.
I have been slowly adding to the OMHTB as time permits. I left the U of KY in 2000 to pursue my own Internet startup companies, Interactive Learning Paradigms and Safety Emporium, but my love of organometallic chemistry persists. In fact, although my current position is demanding, it offers me more time to work on the OMHTB than when I was a professor. And I don't catch any grief from colleagues for "wasting time" on a teaching resource instead of generating publications and grant money.
For more about my background, you can look here.
Status
I have had several requests for the OMHTB on CD-ROM. I've been reluctant to do that for two reasons:
- I am continually updating and tweaking the entries. Having this freely available on the web ensures that the most up-to-date material is always available.
- It is not economically worthwhile, but if someone wants to publish this and pay me royalties, I am open to suggestions.
Of course, please thank our sponsor (that banner at the top of the page) for their support and (financial) encouragement to constantly update and improve this resource.
This is generally a "spare time" project for me. If you are interested in writing a section or submitting some self-test questions for this resource, contact me via email. Any and all help is welcomed. I will happily reference you as a contributing author, although I can't afford to pay you anything for your effort.
Future Expansion Plans
I generally foresee expansion in two main areas:
- Addition of more interactive self-tests to the existing material.
- Addition of new entries as time permits. Some of the entries I would like to get to soon are found in the index (those lacking hyperlinks). But there are a bunch of other topics that I would like to add such as dinitrogen chemistry and the isolobal analogy.
As I update existing entries I have been trying to add additional primary literature references as well as trying to put in links back to the web pages of the original researchers. When I first started this project in 1994, that wasn't feasible, but now almost every (academic) chemist has a web page.
If anyone knows of any good hyperlinks to add to an entry, send me the URL and tell me what entry you think would benefit from this link. Thanks!
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This page was last updated Tuesday, March 31, 2015
This document and associated figures are copyright 1996-2024 by Rob Toreki or the contributing author (if any) noted above. Send comments, kudos and suggestions to us by email. All rights reserved.
