X-ray Crystallography is a skill that is unable to be taught to a lot of undergraduates at primarily undergraduate institutions due to lack of equipment. At Eastern Illinois University we are fortunate to have a working X-ray diffractometer for student and faculty use. A course on X-ray diffraction has been developed to provide both undergraduate and master’s chemistry students a thorough background on X-ray crystallography through both a lecture and lab component. The course meets two days a week for a 50-minute lecture and one day a week for a 3-hour lab. The combination of the lecture and lab components is essential to students being able to have the hands-on learning of crystal growth, data collection, and data resolution.<br/><br/>The lecture course is designed to give students an understanding of X-ray crystallography, including the history, theories, and methodology of X-ray diffraction (both powder and single crystal). The lab component of the course provides students with hands on experience synthesizing crystals through multiple synthetic techniques, mounting crystals, initializing data collections, solving crystal structures, along with the collection, solving, and analyzing of powder and single-crystal X-ray diffraction patterns.<br/><br/>The lab component of the course also provides an opportunity for the students to delve into chemical research. Through an open synthetic project, students are required to delve into the literature and contemplate ligand and metal choices to work with synthetically, with a goal of synthesizing a new crystal structure, which can be prepared for publication. The students utilize hydrothermal synthesis for this project, however, this project could also be adapted to utilize other synthesis methods, such as slow evaporation. With a prerequisite requirement of general chemistry II, this course exposes students early in their careers to chemical research and an instrumental technique that many would not be exposed to until graduate school.

Development of a hands-on X-ray crystallographic course for primarily undergraduate institutions

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