Michael O’Neill

Our first manuscript is published in @cerp.rsc.org an exploration of how mechanistic chemistry is taught at A level. A huge thanks goes out to those teachers who contributed to the research by answering surveys and being interviewed. @cpchem.bsky.social
pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

Watched this a few times now and found it striking to see how signing is not a substitute for speech or drawing, but rather its own mode of communication with particular affordances specific to it.

A Future in Chemistry | RSC Education Real-life career stories and articles to inspire and inform you about your future in chemistry

The RSC has some good un-pushy webpages for school leavers considering Chemistry as clearing looms. edu.rsc.org/future-in-ch...

The discussion around languages declining in UK HE is a few years ahead of Chemistry (IMO).

It's interesting to see school provision framed so centrally in this argument, and worth thinking about how Chemistry might reach/avoid this destination.

ViCEPHEC2025 ViCEPHEC2025, 28th-29th August 2025, Liverpool, UK

Abstracts for #ViCEPHEC25 are now available on the website. vicephec2025.weebly.com/book-of-abst...

I went to the cinema today and there was an ad for the Transpennine Express in the trailers. Someone booed.

How to drop accreditation — Michael O'Neill If your Chemistry degree abandoned RSC accreditation, how would you make a success of that?

**New Blog Post** How to drop accreditation. A quick examination of how a Department might make a success of leaving the RSC accreditation regime. www.michaeloneill.org/blog-1/2025/...

It’s so enjoyable! The iron one not working is also extremely funny.

🚨 At the @rsc.org, we’re calling for coordinated action from government and funders to address these imbalances, ensuring that chemistry continues to benefit regional economies, and that chemistry degree programmes remain available across the UK to train our future chemistry workforce.

Is there a way to un-paywall articles about Departmental closures, @chemistryworld.com ?

Chemistry ‘cold spots’ emerging across the UK, RSC warns Some regions face a future with fewer chemists

University chemistry departments & course closures in the UK is leading to the emergence of ‘cold spots’ - areas where the subject cannot be studied within a reasonable travel time - says @rsc.org. Students from lower SE backgrounds could be affected the most: www.chemistryworld.com/news/chemist...

Double-Sandwich Pentalene Complexes M2(pent†)2 (M = Rh, Pd; pent† = 1,4-Bis(triisopropylsilyl)pentalene): Synthesis, Structure, and Bonding The bis(pentalene) complexes M2(pent†)2 (M = Rh (1), Pd (2); pent† = 1,4-bis(triisopropylsilyl)pentalene) have been synthesized and structurally characterized. In both 1 and 2 the metals have a formal electron count in excess of 18 per metal center, and DFT calculations indicate antibonding metal–metal interactions are present in 1, whereas 2 involves antibonding metal–ligand interactions.

Big fan of all the excitement about structural chemistry, though, and perhaps this gives me an opportunity to recall some of the fun fused ring metallocene derivatives we have in the recent literature: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Boring technical opinion, but I think it’s inaccurate to claim this about textbooks.

Cobaltocene, a 19ve compound, is discussed even in *very* old texts such as Cotton & Wilkinson.

I’m sorry for those emails I wrote when my office was 32 degrees

A figure of qualitative MO diagrams of N₂ without and with mixing along with a photoelectron spectrum for the same molecule. In the MO diagram with mixing, the orbital energies are correlated to the position of the peaks on the photoelectron spectrum corresponding to to the removal of an electron from that energy level.

The linked J. Chem. Ed. article above has this diagram connecting MO diagrams of N₂ with the photoelectron spectrum which I feel should be the complete image that all students learning MO theory should see.

I have never seen this idea in a intro chem textbook covering MOs.

Maybe a dumb question, but why doesn't the Jahn-Teller distortion happen to Ni(II)? Is it just the pairing energy outweighing the orbital stabilisation? #ChemSky

We're working on building a #ViCEPHEC25 starter pack, which you can find here. Starter packs let you follow a group of people at once.

Message if you'd like to be added/removed - this is very much a work in progress. go.bsky.app/FffPieC

I think maybe it is often the rationale for trying something, but rarely the measurement for whether something succeeded?

Overlooked and undervalued, the chemical industry needs attention

Why is such a vital industry so often ignored when it comes to industrial strategy?

@liamkhardy.bsky.social, head of research, discusses why the chemical's industry needs more attention:

This is quite a creative way to use a test, if something like that is on hand and ready to go. I can see how that would be useful.

National Student Survey 2025 All the data and headlines you need from this year's National Student Survey

Oxford passed the reporting threshold for NSS results in Chemistry again this year, so you are able to see how it compares to other Universities.

The third figure here with CAH3/Chemistry lets you do this pretty readily. wonkhe.com/blogs/nation...

Sorry I am asking so many questions! I am very curious about this stuff.

Right - the pre-med problems play out in college rather than school in the US. Would the ACS… organic exam have any quirks because of that?

I am confident that any Chris Armstrong creation would wow them.

Oh that’s quite a few! Would a university pay to use them? Do the ACS mark the scripts, too?

Are there standardised exams for advanced topics, or is it mostly about the earlier material? Every now and again we discuss standardising the first year of a UK Chemistry degree.

Been chewing this over. There are appx 50 universities in the UK offering Chemistry degrees. The scale you're talking about would be something like half of the country here.

I wonder if a big part of the UK situation is that there is extremely aggressive sorting of students by end-of-school grades in University admissions. I'm not sure how that compares to the US.

This is so interesting! Are they widely used? In the UK people are very defensive over setting their own exams, but the workload associated with this is massive. I'm not sure whether it would be very popular or very unpopular here.

Reflections on EuroVariety 2025 2-4 July 2024 Krakow, Poland Assoc Prof Alison Hill (University of Exeter) was awarded an RSC Higher Education Group bursary to attend EuroVariety 2025. She reflects on her experience of the conference. European Variety in Uni…

An account of this year's EuroVariety conference, which I've never been to. It sounds good! rscheg.wordpress.com/2025/07/08/r...