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  Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues > 1999  > March  >
Research: Science and Education
A Pictorial Approach to Molecular Orbital Bonding in Polymers: Non-Mathematical but Honest
Gordon J. Miller and John G. Verkade
Iowa State University, Department of Chemistry, Ames, IA 50011-3111
Cover
March 1999
Vol. 76 No. 3
p. 428
Abstract
The generator orbital (GO) approach is a useful tool for teaching students how to visualize, pictorially, the MO's in a wide assortment of discrete organic, organometallic, metal complex, and cluster molecules possessing a variety of structures. We describe a novel and useful extension of this non-mathematical but honest learning concept to a timely and important class of molecules, namely, polymers. Two examples are treated by our pictorial method: one is s-bonded polyethylene and the other is p-conjugated polyacetylene. Use of the GO approach also leads to an understanding of the role of the HOMO/LUMO gap in the insulating properties of polyethylene and in the semiconducting behavior of undoped polyacetylene via Peierls distortion. This pedagogical method also provides students with a fundamental appreciation of the metallic conduction of polyacetylene via hole conduction when it is partially oxidized by doping with bromine, for example.
More Information
*  Citation
 Miller, Gordon J.; Verkade, John G. J. Chem. Educ. 1999 76 428.
*  Keywords
 Polymer Chemistry; Teaching / Learning Aids; Bonding Theory; Quantum Chemistry; MO Theory
*  History
 Created:
Last Updated:		 June 15, 1999
June 22, 2005
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