Courses


CHEM 834 - Structural Chemistry - Spring 2003

Dr. Michal Sabat, Room 165 (lab) or 246 (office) Phone: 924-7862
E-mail: ms5c@virginia.edu
http://faculty.virginia.edu/molecular-structure/

This year, in addition to the basics of molecular structure determination, the main subject of the course will be crystallization. The practical part of the course will include crystallization experiments and structure determinations using our CCD diffractometer. Lectures will be on Mondays and Wednesdays at 10 - 11:30 AM in Room 290 (the new chemistry building). Grading will take into account two quizzes and a final project based on the crystal growing and structure determination for at least two compounds, will be performed by each of the students. The required text is "Crystal Structure Determination" by Werner Massa, Springer Verlag, 2000. The text "Crystallization of Biological Macromolecules" by Alexander McPherson, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 1999, is recommended for learning general crystallization methods. Several chapters of the book "Accurate Molecular Structures-Their Determination and Importance", edited by Aldo Domenicano and Istvan Hargittai, Oxford University Press, 1992, will also be useful. In addition, a number of other textbooks will be available on the reserve shelf of the Chemistry Library.

Syllabus

January 20 Experimental Techniques of Structural Chemistry. Microwave Spectroscopy, EXAFS, Electron and Neutron Diffraction - Introduction and Overview
22 Fundamentals of Crystallization
27 Crystal Growing - Vapor Diffusion Techniques
29 Crystal Growing - Liquid Diffusion Techniques
February 3 X-Rays. The Geometry of X-Ray Diffraction
5 Crystal Lattices. The reciprocal lattice
10 Crystal Symmetry. Space Groups
12 Quiz I
17 Single-Crystal Four-Circle Diffractometers and Area Detectors
19 Data Reduction
24 Structure Factors
26 The Phase Problem. Fourier Transforms
March 10 Structure Solution - Heavy Atom Methods
12 Structure Solution - Direct Methods I
17 Structure Solution - Direct Methods II
19 Structure Refinement I
24 Structure Refinement II
26 Quiz II
31 The SHELXTL System
April 2 Interpretation of Results
7 Errors and Pitfalls
10 Twinning and Disorder
14 Absolute Configuration Determination
16 Structure Correlation
21 Crystallographic Databases
23 Presentation and Discussion of Projects I
28 Presentation and Discussion of Projects II