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UNIVERSITY OF MALTA
FACULTY OF SCIENCE
Department of Chemistry
BSc (Hons) Year 1
January 2013 Assessment Session
CHE1340 - Principles of Inorganic Chemistry 19
th
January 2013
09.15 11.15am
Answer ALL questions in Section A and ONE question from Section B
Section A (Attempt ALL questions in this section. 6 complete answers are required to achieve full
marks 70.)
1. (a) List the four different types of quantum numbers and state what each represents. [4]
(b) Write down the set of quantum numbers which describes an electron in a 4s atomic
orbital. How will this set of quantum numbers change if you are describing the second
electron in the same orbital? Using Paulis Exclusion Principle explain your answer. [4]
(c) What are the two possible ground state electron configurations of a nitrogen atom?
Which one is correct according to Hunds rule? [3]
(d) Using Slaters rule, calculate the effective nuclear charge (Z
eff
) for a valence electron in
chlorine. [3]
(e) What is the significance of Slaters rule when comparing s and p orbitals to those of d
and f orbitals? [2]
[Total 16 marks]
2. (a) Using the VSEPR theory, predict the shapes of the following species:
(i) SF
6
[1]
(ii) [XeF
5
]
-
[1]
(iii) XeF
2
[1]
(b) Draw the Lewis structures and give the names of the shapes of the species in (a). [3]
[Total 6 marks]
3. (a) Draw the molecular orbital (MO) diagram for the nitrogen molecule (N
2
) showing
electron occupancy. [5]
(b) Identify the LUMO and the HOMO. [1]
(c) State the bond order of the nitrogen molecule. [2]
(d) Would you expect nitrogen to be diamagnetic or paramagnetic? Why? [2]
(e) Does the helium molecule He
2
exist? Explain your answer in terms of a MO diagram
and the bond order. [4]
[Total 14 marks]
4. (a) Give the point groups of the following molecules and show all the symmetry
operations on the molecules. [8]
(i) CHCl
3
(ii) C
5
H
5
N (pyridine)
(iii) C
2
H
2
(ethyne)
Page 2 of 5
(iv) C
2
H
6
(ethane eclipsed form)
Attached is the flow chart to help you determine the point group (Appendix)
(b) Determine the point group of trans-[CoCl
2
(en)
2
]
+
(shown below). Show all your
work and label all the symmetry elements on the figure. [5]
[Total 13 marks]
5. This question is about matrices and symmetry operations.
(a) Refer to the figure below and determine the matrices required for the following
symmetry operations.
Symmetry Operation Matrix Original Co-ordinates Final Co-ordinates
E
C
3
v
(passing through C)
h
[6]
(b) Show whether the following two matrices commute. Calculate the character for
the product matrices. [4]
[Total 10 marks]
Page 3 of 5
6. The Born-Mayer equation describes the columbic interactions between ions in a crystal lattice
and is represented by:
N
A
= Avogadros constant
Z
+
= charge of the positive ion
Z
-
= charge of the negative ion
And all the terms have their standard meaning.
(a) What do the terms U, N
A
, e and
o
represent? [4]
(b) Explain the significance of the Madelungs constant in the equation. [2]
(c) Calculate the lattice energy for NaCl, using the following information. [5]
Ionic radius for Na
+
: 116pm
Ionic radius for Cl
-
: 167pm
M for NaCl : 1.74756
= 30pm
o
e
4
2
: 2.307 x 10
-28
Jm
N : 6.022 x 10
23
mol
-1
[Total 11 marks]
Section B (Attempt ONE question in this section. 1 complete answer is required to achieve full
marks 30.)
7. (a) This question is about reducing reducible representations. Reduce
1
and
2
to the
irreducible representations.
C
2h
E C
2
i
h
1
8 0 6 2
2
3 1 -3 -1
Refer to Table 1 in the Appendix for the character table for a C
2h
point group. [6]
(b) H
2
O belongs to the point group C
2v
.
Refer to Table 2 in the Appendix for the character table for a C
2v
point group.
=
+
o
r
e
r
Z MZ N
U
o
o
A
1
4
2
Page 4 of 5
(i) Determine the symmetry of the molecular orbitals expected from the hydrogen
atoms. [6]
(ii) Determine the symmetry of the oxygen orbitals. [9]
(iii) Using the orbital symmetry information obtained above, construct a molecular
orbital diagram showing the electron occupancy for the H
2
O molecule. [9]
[Total 30 marks]
8. This question is about IR and Raman spectroscopy.
(a) Calculate the number of vibrational modes present in a molecule of and show diagrams
for all the vibrational modes for these molecules: [8]
(i) SO
2
(ii) CO
2
(b) Determine the reducible representation for all the molecular motions for CCl
4
(tetrahedral geometry), reduce the representation to its irreducible components and
classify these representations into translational, rotational and vibrational modes. State
which vibrational modes are IR, Raman active or both. [18]
Refer to Table 3 in the Appendix for the character table for a T
d
point group.
The contribution of the operations is as follows:
E =3, C
4
and all = 1, all C
2
= -1, S
4
= -1, i = -3
(c) State the mutual exclusion rule and give an example of a molecule which shows mutual
exclusion. [4]
[Total 30 marks]
Appendix
Table 1 Character Table for a C
2h
point group.
Table 2 Character Table for a C
2v
point group.
Page 5 of 5
Table 3 Character Table for a T
d
point group