You are encouraged to work in groups on the element papers. Each of you should pick a

specific question but working on related areas will be helpful. Some potential areas for topics include:

1. Why is Pt effective as an anticancer agent in cis-platin (and other Pt-based drugs)?
2. Why is Au effective as anarthritic drug?
3. Why is Li effective as a drug for treating manic depression? (warning, this is very interesting, but hard)
4. Why is chromium carcinogenic?
5. Why is arsenic carcinogenic?
6. Why is Fe(0) used to remediate groundwater?
7. Why is chromium used in magnetic storage devices?
8. Why is sulfur used in chemical weapons?
9. Why is platinum used in catalytic converters?
10. Why is chlorine used to disinfect water?
11. Why is boron used in neutron capture therapy?
12. Why are certain lanthanides used as magnetic contrast agents?
13. Why are certain lanthanides used to treat cancer?
14. Why is manganese added to gasoline?
15. Why are certain oxygen species toxic?
16. Why is titanium used in artificial body parts?
17. Why is mercury toxic?
18. Why is tin used on boats?
19. Why is titanium used on windows?
20. Why is tungsten used on windows?
21. Why was lead added to gasoline?
22. Why is sodium considered for use as a coolant in nuclear power plants?
23. Why does carbon make silicon carbide an industrially useful semiconductor?
24. Why is carbon the building block of life and not, for example, silicon?
25. Why is silicon used in ceramics?
26. Why is palladium used as a catalyst in carbon-carbon bond formation?
27. Why is titanium so effective in enantioselective synthesis (Chem Rev 2006, 106, 2126)?

You can also get ideas for topics from reading inorganic journals. We get Inorganic Chemistry,

Organometallic chemistry, and the Journal of Bioinorganic Chemistry. Chemical and Engineering News, which we

also get, can be a good source of ideas too.