Synthesis of the salts of weakly coordinating stibate ions : & Students' perceptions of two- and three- dimensional animations depicting an oxidation-reduction reaction /

Abstract

SYTHESIS OF SALTS OF WEAKLY COORDINATING STIBATE IONS. Weakly coordinating anions have many important applications including olefin polymerization co-catalysis. In an attempt to make tristibic acid, distibic acid and tetrastibic acid were made. Cesium, barium, nickel(II), and diethylammonium salts of tetrastibic acid were also synthesized. Tetrastibic acid and the ammonium salts were concluded to be stable. Elemental analyses showed that neither tristibic acid nor tristibic acid were stable under the reaction conditions employed.

STUDENTS' PERCEPTIONS OF TWO- AND THREE-DIMENSIONAL ANIMATIONS DEPICTING AN OXIDATION-REDUCATION REACTION. Electrochemistry is a difficult subject for many students to comprehend. In order to improve teaching in this area of chemistry, semi-structured clinical interviews on second-semester introductory chemistry students were conducted in which students' were asked to explain the particulate behavior of the chemicals in an oxidation-reduction reaction. The interviews included questions after students viewed the chemical demonstration and two computer animations depicting the particulate nature of the same chemical reaction. Misinterpretations of the two animations were identified and described in detail. The simpler 2-D animation was beneficial in helping students understand the oxidation-reduction reaction and write the balanced chemical equation. However, the 3-D animation did not appear to be detrimental to student understanding. Suggestions, taken from the students' comments in the interviews, for improving the animations and for teaching electrochemistry were discussed.