Course syllabus

Course-PM

The synthesis, properties and structures of solid state materials (KOO093, 7.5 hp).

The course is offered by the department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering

Contact details

Maths Karlsson, teacher and examiner. E-mail: maths.karlsson@chalmers.se

Christine Geers, teacher. E-mail: geersc@chalmers.se

Lars Öhrström, teacher. E-mail: ohrstrom@chalmers.se

Lab assistants:

Rasmus Lavén, lab assistant. E-mail: rasmus.laven@chalmers.se

Elena Naumovska, lab assistant. E-mail: elenana@chalmers.se

Amanda Persdotter, lab assistant. E-mail: amanda.persdotter@chalmers.se

Kanming Shi, lab assistant. E-mail: kanming@chalmers.se

Student representatives:

Betül Ahmed. E-mail: betulahmed@hotmail.com

Henrik Appelqvist. E-mail: henrik.appelqvist@bahnhof.se

Agnes Lycke. E-mail: agneslycke00@gmail.com

Emelie Nero. E-mail: emelie.nero@gmail.com

Hannes Sellén. E-mail: hannessellen@hotmail.com

A mid-term meeting was held on October 16, and meeting minutes are available under "Files".

Course purpose

The overall aim of the course is to give a good understanding of the synthesis, structure and properties of inorganic materials in the solid state, and to illustrate various technological applications of such materials. 

Schedule

TimeEdit

Course literature

Main literature:

Solid State Chemistry, 5th edition (Lesley Smart and Elaine Moore, CRC Press 2021)

Distributed lab compendium

Additional, relevant, literature, for further reading

Inorganic Chemistry, 7th edition (Mark T. Weller, OUP2018)

Characterization Methods in Inorganic Chemistry (Mark T. Weller, OUP 2017)

International Tables for Crystallography, vol. A. (Theo Hahn, Kluwer Academic Publishers)

Course design

The course is composed of 17 lectures (2 hours each), a project work (as performed in groups of four persons), and 4 laboratory exercises (as performed in groups of two persons - and, note, each group performs only three labs). It is recommended you follow the reading instructions and prepare yourself before the lectures and laboratory exercises. In order to stimulate further your learning, you will be given the chance to take a quiz at the very beginning of most lectures. A quiz consists of 5 questions on the previous lecture. Each question is worth 1 point, and, therefore, the maximum score on a quiz is 5 points. In case you will score at least 4 points on a quiz, you will be given 1 bonus point on the written examination at the end of the course. In total, there will be 6 quizzes, thus the maximum number of bonus points will be 6.  Please note, the respective quizzes will be handed out exactly when the lecture starts (e.g., at 13.15) and will be collected exactly 7 minutes later. Additionally, you have the opportunity to collect up to 4 bonus points by submitting your lab reports in time. Thus, you have the chance to gather 10 bonus points in total.

Timetable for the lectures

Date	Time	Room	Lectures	Teacher
31/8 (Wedn)	08.00-09.45	MB	F1. Course introduction, crystal structures	Maths K
2/9 (Friday)	08.00-11.45	MA	F2-F3. Crystal structures	Maths K
6/9 (Tuesd)	10.00-11.45	MB	F4. Bonding in solids, and electronic and optical properties	Maths K
7/9 (Wedn)	08.00-09.45	MB	F5. Diffraction theory (Quiz 1)	Christine G
9/9 (Friday)	08.00-09.45	MB	F6. Symmetry in crystals - Visualisation and analysis (Quiz 2) (compulsory)	Christine G
9/9 (Friday)	10.00-11.45	D41	F7. Symmetry in crystals - Visualisation and analysis (compulsory)	Christine G
13/9 (Tuesd)	08.00-11.45	MB	F8-F9. Structure data bases	Lars Ö
14/9 (Wedn)	08.00-09.45	MB	F10. Synthesis (Quiz 3)	Lars Ö
20/9 (Tuesd)	08.00-10.45	MB	F11-F12. Defects and ionic conductivity (Quiz 4)	Maths K
21/9 (Wedn)	08.00-09.45	MB	F13. Physical characterization techniques (SEM, TEM, EDX, EELS, XAS, STM, AFM, TGA, DSC) (Quiz 5)	Maths K
23/9 (Friday)	08.00-09.45	MB	F14. Research at large-scale neutron and photon facilities	Maths K
26/9 (Mond)	15.15-17.00	MB	F15. Magnetism, superconductivity, and battery applications (Quiz 6)	Lars Ö
28/9 (Wedn)	08.00-09.45	MB	Reserve
30/9 (Friday)	08.00-11.45	MB	Visualisation and analysis - project presentations (compulsory)	Christine G
4/10 (Tuesd)	10.00-11.45	MB	Reserve
5/10 (Wedn)	08.00-11.45	MB	Reserve
11/10 (Tues)	10.00-11.45	EC	F17. Summary	Maths K, Christine G.
18/10 (Tues)	11.00-11.45	MB	Time for questions	Maths K
28/10 (am)		TBA	Written examination	All

Quiz 1: Crystal structures, bonding in solids, electronic and optical properties.

Quiz 2: Diffraction theory.

Quiz 3: Symmetry in crystals, and structure data bases.

Quiz 4: Synthesis.

Quiz 5: Defects and ionic conductivity.

Quiz 6: Physical characterization techniques.

 

Timetable for the lab exercises

Date	Time	Room	Lab exercise	Teacher
5/9 (Monday)	13.15-17.00	KB5106 KB5111	Materials synthesis Groups 1-3 - BaTiO3 Groups 11-13 - Zeolite	Elena N Kanming S
6/9 (Tuesday)	13.15-17.00	KB5106 KB5111	Materials synthesis Groups 4-6 - BaTiO3 Groups 14-16 Zeolite	Elena N Kanming S
8/9 (Thursday)	08.00-11.45	KB5106 KB5111	Materials synthesis Groups 7-10 - BaTiO3 Groups 17-20 - Zeolite	Elena N Kanming S
15/9 (Thursd)	08.00-17.00 08.00-10.00 10.00-12.00 13.00-15.00 15.00-17.00 08.00-09.00 09.00-10.00 10.00-11.00 13.00-14.00 14.00-15.00	CMAL CMAL CMAL CMAL CMAL CMAL CMAL CMAL CMAL	X-ray diffraction Groups 1-3 - BaTiO3 Groups 4-7 - BaTiO3 Groups 8-10 - BaTiO3 Groups 11-13 - Zeolite Groups 11-12 - single crystal Groups 13-14 - single crystal Groups 15-16 - single crystal Groups 17-18 - single crystal Groups 19-20 - single crystal	Rasmus L Rasmus L Rasmus L Rasmus L Lars Ö Lars Ö Lars Ö Lars Ö Lars Ö
16/9 (Friday)	08.00-16.00 08.00-09.00 09.00-10.00 10.00-11.00 13.00-14.00 14.00-15.00 11.00-13.00 14.00-16.00	CMAL CMAL CMAL CMAL CMAL CMAL CMAL	X-ray diffraction Groups 1-2 - single crystal Groups 3-4 - single crystal Groups 5-6 - single crystal Groups 7-8 - single crystal Groups 9-10 - single crystal Groups 14-16 - Zeolite Groupe 17-20 - Zeolite	Lars Ö Lars Ö Lars Ö Lars Ö Lars Ö Rasmus L Rasmus L
20/9 (Tuesday)	11.00-17.00 11.00-12.00 13.00-14.00 14.00-15.00 15.00-16.00 16.00-17.00	6017 6017 6017 6017 6017	Scanning electron microscopy Groups 1-2 - BaTiO3 Groups 3-4 - BaTiO3 Groups 5-6 - BaTiO3 Groups 7-8 - BaTiO3 Groups 9-10 - BaTiO3	Amanda P Amanda P Amanda P Amanda P Amanda P
22/9 (Thursd)	13.15-18.10 13.15-14.00 14.05-14.50 14.55-15.40 15.45-16.30 16.35-17.20	6038A 6038A 6038A 6038A 6038A	Thermal analysis Groups 11-12 - Zeolite Groups 13-14 - Zeolite Groups 15-16 - Zeolite Groups 17-18 - Zeolite Groups 19-20 - Zeolite	Elena N Elena N Elena N Elena N Elena N

Changes made since the last occasion

The course will not longer be given in a mixed format (i.e. both on-campus, and on-line), but will be given only on campus. This concerns all parts of the course.

Learning objectives and syllabus

Learning objectives:

1. Explain the importance of close-packing in inorganic chemistry and its relevance to crystal structures and properties of solid materials.
2. Describe a number of common inorganic type-structures, and have an understanding for why certain materials adopt certain type-structures.
3. Apply the knowledge about crystal structures and bonding to predict a materials electrical, magnetic, optical and mechanical properties. You should also be able to describe how various types of defects affect the properties of a solid material.
4. Understand the basics in diffraction theory and symmetry relevant for analysing crystalline powder samples. This means that you understand Bragg's law, basic diffraction theory, and symmetry operations and the theory behind absent reflections. From a powder pattern of a cubic crystalline material you should be able to calculate the unit cell dimensions and determine the Bravais lattice type.
5. Understand how  X-rays and neutrons give complementary structural information.
6. Apply the proper preparative method for the preparation of inorganic materials by using information in the scientific literature. After the preparation you should be able to identify the reaction products, and determine and identify impurities. Based on this information you should be able to develop an improved preparative route in order to obtain pure reaction products.
7. Describe and explain common experimental techniques used to characterize solid materials. This includes practical experience of powder diffraction and thermal analysis (DTA, TG and DSC).
8. If properties are not characterized by the above methods you should be able to recommend other methods. This includes for example various spectroscopic methods as IR, UV, EXAFS, NMR as well as SEM and TEM.
9. Understand ionic vs. electronic conductivity, conductivity mechanism, role of defects and structure, solid electrolyse, battery, fuel cell, sensor materials.
10. Read and understand a scientific paper in the field of inorganic solid state, structure reports as well as papers dealing with properties, or materials synthesis.
11. Knowledge as well as practical experience of several databases as ICSD, CSD is also something you will obtain. Using graphical software (Diamond) to draw crystal structures from a standard data-file (CIF-format) containing structural data.
12. Describe the importance and potentials of solid state materials for the development of a sustainable society.

Link to the syllabus on Studieportalen.

Study plan

Examination form

Written examination on Friday 28th of October (in the morning). The exam will consist of several questions, which will reflect the content of the course (both what is written in the course material, and what is said during the lectures and lab exercises). The maximum score on the exam will be 60 points. However, you may, in addition to this, have "bonus points" as earned on quizzes (see above) and on lab reports (see below). Thus, the maximum score you can obtain is 60 + 6 + 4 = 70 points.

Grade thresholds (including bonus points) on the written exam:

For Chalmers (KOO093): grade 3 (30 points), grade 4 (39 points), and grade 5 (48 points)

For GU (KEM150): grade G (30 points), grade VG (45 points)

Laboratory exercises:

Passed laboratory exercises, including the passing of experimental lab reports, and a passed project (report + presentation), are required for passing the course.

Please see the lab manual for detailed instructions regarding how to pass the laboratory exercises. Note, by submitting your lab reports in time, you will collect bonus points to be used on the written exam (1 bonus point /lab report). Reports shall be handed in per individual.

Projects on the visualisation of crystal structures:

In a group project, the course participants will visualize, analyze and present one crystalline material by identifying suitable crystal structure database files, so called cif-files and employ a visualization software, in this case VESTA. This tool will be used to identify crystal planes in the structure corresponding to powder-diffractograms, to discuss symmetry elements and also briefly electron density in a crystal. In total ten individual topics will be offered for groups of four students. All projects will be peer-reviewed and presented at the end of the assignment.

This assignment is mandatory, more details can be found in the assignment folder and will be given in the first lecture on diffraction.