The State of Crystallographic Education

1. The State of Crystallographic Education Phillip Fanwick Chemical Crystallographer Purdue University

2. Questions to be answered • Why teach crystallography? • What is currently in the curriculum? • Why isn’t more taught • How should crystallography be taught?

3. How crystallographers feel about the current state of education.

4. Why teach crystallography? • The Cambridge Structural Database which consists of all compound with an organic carbon contains 325,709 entries. • The Inorganic Crystal Structure Database which consists of compounds without organic carbon contains 82,676 entries. • There are probably at minimum 25% more unpublished structures • This is a huge amount of information.

5. Crystallography has been the second most used analytical tool since 1980 after NMR. The development of organometallic chemistry would not have been possible without crystallography. Widespread use in pharmaceutical research

6. Given the widespread use it is imperative that chemists at a minimum be able to critically evaluate crystallographic data. • Better still they should be able to perform simple analyses.

7. Interesting Results

8. What is in General Chemistry • The definition of the unit cell—frequently incorrect!

13. Common Cell Types • Examples such as NaCl or CsI. • All are cubic or hexagonal • No examples of molecular crystals even though this is a majority of structures. • The most common crystal class is monoclinic followed by triclinic

14. Bragg’s Law

15. Problems with Bragg’s Law • The derivation is assumed to be the mechanism. • Atoms do NOT sit on Bragg planes. • It gives no insight into how a crystal structure is solved • Interestingly crystallographers still call their data “reflections”

16. Other Undergraduate Chemistry Courses • There is typically no mention of crystallography in organic or analytical chemistry courses. • Physical chemistry typically discusses the same topics as general chemistry and may add powder and single crystal diffraction. • Inorganic courses frequently mention crystallography but do not cover the technique in any meaningful way.

17. Graduate Level • At Purdue the crystallographer does all the crystallography. A course is offered. • At other universities students do their own structures and either take a course or are guided by a crystallographer or other students. • However, in most graduate exams the use of crystallography is forbidden.

18. Why Crystallography isn’t taught • The equipment is very expensive—at one time true not so much today. • Special computers and software are needed—programs work on standard pc’s and are public domain. • The lack of good text books—unfortunately true • No course to add it to. • It is strictly an inorganic technique.

19. The Theory is too Hard!

22. How to teach crystallography • The fact that we can teach nmr to second year students gives a blueprint for teaching crystallography. • The students need to learn how to use the technique and analyze the results and not the theory behind them!

23. Approaches to consider • Forget history. • Assume instruments and programs work. • Relate crystallography to other techniques in chemistry. • Do not teach topics that professional crystallographers don’t use in their daily work. • Remember we are training chemist and not crystallographers!!

24. Relating Crystallography

25. Be creative

32. Can it be done? Allen Hunter at Youngstown State has inserted crystallography into all lab courses involving systhesis Katherine Kantardjieff at Cal. State Fullerton has set up a diffractometer for remote use by the entire Cal State system. Marcus Bond at S.E. Missouri State has set up a similar system.

33. Conclusions • Crystallography is too important to modern chemistry to be ignored. • What is currently taught is inadequate and frequently incorrect. • There are no valid excuses for not teaching crystallography • It can be done.