Using Balancing Chemical Equations as a Key Starting Point To Create Green Chemistry Exercises Based on Inorganic Syntheses Examples

摘要

Following our previous work on introducing a database of tested chemical examples from Organic Syntheses that can be used as a repository for problem set development in green chemistry courses, in this paper we extend this idea to include over 1300 examples taken from Inorganic Syntheses covering 36 volumes. Examples are sorted according to the following 13 categories: asymmetric syntheses, syntheses involving catalyst preparation, chemoenzymatic reactions, classical resolutions, convergent synthesis plans, kinetic resolutions; multicomponent reactions, multistep linear synthesis plans, natural feedstocks as starting materials, reactions involving product distributions, reactions involving sacrificial reagents, reactions involving nonunity stoichiometric coefficients, and polymerization reactions. In this paper, we highlight the skill of balancing chemical equations as a mandatory prerequisite of green metrics analysis. Through a problem set containing 70 exercises, we selected challenging examples from Inorganic Syntheses to emphasize this point and link it to the understanding of reaction mechanisms. A number of these examples also contain errors or missing information that students are asked to correct. This is yet another good training ground to exercise their skills in problem solving.