[NUS Module Review] CM3212: Transition Metal Chemistry

(INTRODUCTION)

It's quite shocking as to why I even decided to do this module in the first place. CM2111 was a total nightmare and the bell-curve was so steep there that I presumed everyone who did well there eventually ended up taking this module. And I was right. Dem bell curve wreckers all migrated from CM2111 to CM3212 that I was like noooooooo!!! Asides from the bell-curve, we will get to enjoy even more kappa-mu-eta and electron counting! If you're into those, then CM3212 should be the module for you. With that said, welcome to CM3212!

(LECTURERS)

The lecturers are Dr Edith Chan and Dr Stephen Chui. During my time in NUS, I kept on hearing these names pop up out of people's mouth, saying that they are really that good and all. But are they really? Let's find out!

Dr Edith Chan, is to me, one of the most unique Chemistry lecturers. Though her accent is pretty thick due to her residing from Hong Kong, her teaching style is more interactive with the students and perhaps even unconventional. Maybe not as unconventional as Dr Fung but still different. During the lecture, she will go around the entire lecture hall with her mic and occasionally ask students questions based on the lecture. I can safely say that you can never run away from her mic, even if you were to sit at the end corners of the lecture hall. Could you imagine Dr Chan going though mass tutorials in lectures? In a nutshell, be prepared to answer her questions during lectures. 

Dr Stephen Chui has also a pretty thick accent due to him also residing from Hong Kong. Unlike Dr Chan, Dr Chui is not as interactive and instead spends more time talking so much more of a single point or compound or structure, that he will have not enough time to cover the rest. It's almost like when you have 200 slides in two hours, but by the first hour, you only completed 25 slides; that's Dr Chui for you. One thing is for certain though, he is super passionate about Organometallic Framework and Structures. 

(EXPANSION OF TOPICS COVERED)

The topics covered include:

• Types of Ligands and its Coordination (Dr Edith Chan)
• Crystal Field Spliting Theory and MO Diagrams (Dr Edith Chan)
• Electron Counting Methods (Dr Edith Chan)
• Special Transition Metals (Dr Edith Chan)
• Metal-to-ligand/Ligand-to-metal/d-d Transitions (Dr Edith Chan)
• Orgel Diagram/Tanabe-Sugano Diagrams (Dr Edith Chan)
• IR/Mass Spectroscopy/Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (Dr Edith Chan)
• Ligand Substitution (Dr Edith Chan)
• Structural Methods using Mass Spectroscopy and Diffraction (Dr Stephen Chui)
• Self-assembled Supramolecules (Dr Stephen Chui)
• Operation principles of OLED, LEEC and DSSC (Dr Stephen Chui)
• Polyoxometallates (Dr Stephen Chui)
• Solid State Synthesis, Magnetism, Oxide, Perovskites, Spinel Structures and its applications (Dr Stephen Chui)
• Metal-Organic Framework, SBU and Post-Synthetic Modification (Dr Stephen Chui)

Actually, instead of summarizing the chapters for you in point form, let me try and link the topics for you.

So you will start off with Dr Chan teaching you a lot about keppa-eta-mu and of course the different type of ligands involved (non-encapsulating/encapsulating, open-chained/closed-chained) and how some of these ligands bind to the metal. After that, you will learn about the different type of MO diagrams and electron counting, a bit of a refresher course from CM2111. Some special Transition Metal Groups will be highlighted like Group 8, 10 and 11; pretty simple stuff. Of course, with ligand bonding, MLCT and LMCT will be involved alongside d-d transitions and the Orgel Diagrams. Something new but certainly not something to panic about which is the Tanabe-Sugano Diagrams. These diagrams are simply an expansion of Orgel Diagrams and it provides details that the Orgel cannot provide like energy transitions and spin-forbidden transitions. IR/MS/NMR are pretty self-explanatory, but are certainly not to be underestimated because they will be tested, especially NMR. And lastly, ligand substitution is simply learning about the factors that affect it, including our favourite Bailar Twist and Ray-Dutt Twist.

Dr Chui's topic feels more wholesome because if you don't get the first part, it will be more and more confusing to you at the end. So the first part of his topics are essentially talking about using what methods to identify a structure. PXRD and Thermogravimetric Analysis are briefly taught here and they could be helpful in CM3292 and CM3242 respectively. You will also learn how complex molecules form and its properties such as phosphorescence and water-oxidation. This complex includes the supramolecules and polyoxometallates. Of course, different solid complexes have different oxide structures (Spinel/inverse Spinel, Perovskites) with different magnetism. Hence, you will learn their applications to real-life situations. Lastly, if these solids weren't complicated enough, MOF, SBU and PSM will further confuse you as you learn its properties and how it can be used it reactions, extractions and catalysis.

(PASSING THE ASSESSMENT)

The grading for the assessments in this module are as follows:

• CA1 (Dr Chan) - 20%
• Assessment (Dr Chan) - 5%
• CA2 (Dr Chui) - 25%
• Finals - 50%

In case y'all are wondering, the 5% of the assessment is based on the MCQs that Dr Chan will ask students to do prior to a lecture. From this, she is able to gauge how much we actually know about a certain topic before we actually learn it. All you just need to do is to actually attempt and complete it. Free 5% if you asked me.

Now here's the fun part. Dr Chan's CA1 will only cover all the way to "Special Transition Metals". To think that you would be tested so little for CA1 when she actually covered all the way to NMR by then is truly insane. CA1 was too easy already... NOT!!! She is really known for penalizing students even if it was a minor error. From what I heard, she gave the person a zero out of ten for the question on ligand classification all because he didn't state which ligand he was classifying even though he got all of em correct (Okay lah, maybe its the student's fault lol). She also does ask questions on drawing the MO orbitals. Her part may sound simple, but its not as simple as you think.

Dr Chui's CA2 is relatively doable. A good thing about his CA2 is that all the topics tested for CA2 won't be tested for finals! Which means that after CA2, you can open your "Thrash Bin" to empty out those knowledge heh. His CA2 is easier to score than Dr Chan's CA but when its easy for you, it's also easier for the rest of the peeps taking the exam. So maybe you can tell me if that's a good thing or not.

Finals are relatively difficult, but doable. It has four huge questions with many sub-questions that may or may not be linked with each other. To me, Dr Chui's part seems easier than Dr Chan's part, but for Dr Chan's part, if you know it, you can really score. There will definitely be an NMR question, Tanabe-Sugano/Orgel Diagram question and a MOF question. If you do your tutorials well, Dr Chui's part shouldn't be a problem. Dr Chan's part requires you to attempt some of her review questions that she will compile. And I guarantee you, NMR can be a bi*ch sometimes.

(Schedule)

Like any other Chemistry module, CM3212 has two 2-hour lectures and one 1-hour tutorial per week. I don't know why, but CM3212 is famous for being at 8am in the morning. While Dr Chui has finally allowed his lectures to be webcasted, Dr Chan is nowhere near allowing it (unless of course, coronavirus is involved). So good luck is dragging your tired self to class. 

(EXPERIENCE AND FINAL GRADING)

Taking CM3212 was a gamble for me; simply because I did not do superbly well for CM2111 and to think that those who excelled in CM2111 took this module is just asking for trouble. Literally from the get-go, Dr Chan was already asking students for their ligand classification answers and here I am wondering wtf was going on. And I'm being serious because when the students were asking things like "k1-O; k1-O'; k2-O',O''; k2-N,N',N'''; k1-Cl", I was like what on earth is keppa again?

Since I pretty much don't know anyone taking CM3212, I was alone for pretty much the whole entire module, sitting by my poor little self behind the LT. And maybe because I was so alone that Dr Chan rarely called on me to answer the questions lmao. But whenever she did, it was those that I could answer or able to somewhat get close to the right answer. So I was pretty thankful for that. Otherwise, it didn't take me long to finally catch-up and understand what was going on.

CA1 eventually came and to be honest, it caught me by a huge surprise all because of one damn question. And that question is none other than the drawing of the MO orbitals question. The rest of the paper was very doable and I knew that I would get close to full marks for the rest, but the drawing of the MO orbitals were seriously the parts where you would just skip through thinking that no one on earth would test that. And tadah, she did test that and I was literally hoping an answer would miraculously pop up in my head within that thirty minutes of pondering after finishing the entire paper. But it didn't and I didn't do too well for it, falling below the median score.

Dr Chui was up next and he surprisingly allowed webcast! Thanks a lot Dr Chui! We all needed it. But I was already so used to the 8am timeslot that I was still dragging myself to class instead of watching the webcast, except for a couple of days when I would be too tired to leave the bed. But other than that, 8am lesson it is. Every lesson, we would end close to 9.40-9.50am because Dr Chui would always rush to finish the last few contents of the chapter. And the reason for this is because he would always, and I do mean always, go out of topic and talk too deeply about a compound that he would lose track of the main content. Not that it is bad or anything but if there is one thing I have to feedback about him is to focus more on the crust of the content first to avoid going off-topic and end up rushing the content later on. However, I think that he is super nice and helpful.

Okay, back to the main topic. See, even I myself lose track sometimes. Anyways, CA2 felt rather easier to me. But I still made stupid, careless mistakes like being penalized for not writing out the full name of NMR. There was one part of the question even asking for the applications of a certain compound. I was so happy that this question came out because the previous night I saw a similar question in his past paper. I went to research on its applications and memorized it, so when it came to the CA2, I just whack what I memorized. Simple and easy marks. But apparently, the compound name was very similar to a material used in Engineering, and I went to memorize the one from the Engineering part instead of the Chemistry one. Yeah, I know. Stupid me. I still ended up doing rather well despite those errors.

Finals for CM3212 was really scary. I have to admit that I really, truly don't understand Inorganic NMR at all. It was nothing like the Organic NMR and it was simply put; a nightmare. I eventually conceded that fact that I would do NMR the last. I knew it would definitely come out and I was just praying that it doesn't cost me too many marks. Otherwise, I was rather prepared for the rest. I was kinda lucky, because a question I asked Dr Chui to explain to me the previous night, came out in the exact same way in the finals. I attempted Dr Chui's part first because I did not want Dr Chan's part to send me into a shock with the NMR. However, when I got to her part, the NMR question was surprisingly manageable. So I was really happy. The Tanabe-Sugano question was really tricky and electron counting wasn't as easy as it seems. I believe most students will be asking themselves if they should factor a particular electron in the count. If the number of electrons change, so will the Tanabe-Sugano diagram. One wrong step could mean a loss of perhaps 25 marks total.

But in the end, I think I did quite okay, so I'm pretty proud of myself. The moment finals ended, I immediately bolted out of the place because I know those people will start talking about the answers. Guess this was an advantage of not knowing anyone inside because you can just leave by yourself. Although there were sounds of people saying that the finals was difficult. Not sure if they're saying the truth or snaking it out. 

(CONCLUSION AND TIPS)

So that is all for this module review. I will be taking CM4212 after this so good luck to me and I hope that this isn't a suicidal move. But it goes to show that this module isn't too bad. Pretty content heavy if you asked me, but its a safe module to take. 

Ratings out of 5⭐:

• Should you take this module - If you did score well for CM2111. If not, I would still recommend you to take this module if you're into inorganic Chemistry. However, content is heavy on this one.
• Degree of Difficulty - ⭐⭐⭐
• Effort Required - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Timetable Impact - ⭐⭐⭐

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