Prentice Hall Molecular Model Set for General and Organic Chemistry,   ISBN:9780139554445

Customer Rating: 

I had worked with different model kits in the first half of organic chemistry, but was very unsatisfied. When I first saw this product, I thought it looked like a strange model kit, but it was getting lots of good reviews so I decided to risk it.

The model was perfect for o-chem. The bond-sticks are tough to pull out of the atoms, but only initially. After breaking a couple bonds, new molecules can be easily formed.

So yes, very happy with the model.

Customer Rating: 

Since the cover is difficult to decypher, the General and Organic molecular model set contains:

28 White(H) one-hole
14 Black(C) four-hole [tetrahedral]
8 Red(O) two-hole [angular]
4 Blue(N) four-hole [tetrahedral]
8 Green(Cl/F) one-hole
2 Orange(Br) one-hole
2 Yellow(S/metal) four-hole [tetrahedral]
2 Purple(P/I) four-hole [tetrahedral]
2 Brown(B/metal) five-hole [trigonal bipyramidal]
2 Silver(metal) six-hole [octahedral]
40 Single Bond (space-fill)
40 Single Bond (Ball/Stick)
12 Double/Triple Bond
4 S=O P=O Double Bond/lone pairs
although mine came with a few extra of the bonds (unless I miscounted)
Tool for prying apart space-fill models and a booklet which contains helpful pointers for constructing angular, tetrahedral, trigonal bipyramidal, octahedral, linear, trigonal pyramidal, trigonal planar, square planar, and other molecular geometries.
Different sizes of the atoms are close to scale at:
Space-fill: approx. 1.7cm/100pm
Ball/Stick: approx. 2.8cm/100pm

I bought two sets and mixed them together to make up for the lack of Carbon and Nitrogen, at least now I can experiment with nucleotides! :)

The downside (if it is a downside) to this kit is the difficulty of snapping together the bonds. At first some of the bonds are EXTREMELY hard to snap in, but after working with this set for a while they "loosen" up a bit. The advantage to this is that I've actually accidentally dropped a molecule and cringed thinking about trying to find all those atoms after impact ... but it held together! Not a single atom came loose, not even a Hydrogen! I've had kits in the past where part of the molecule falls apart while you're working on the other side, but not with this set. Your molecules stay together until you decide to take them apart! :) A few tips on using the space-fill bond separator tool would have been helpful, but it's fairly easy to figure out - it gets easier and easier to use. My fingers were sure sore after the first day! LOL

The booklet that's included is VERY helpful. It's set up like a tutorial, which even gives you pointers about analysis of molecular geometries - how to estimate relative boiling points, relative stability of isomers, etc; and it's short enough that it keeps your attention. A well-thought-out guide.

All in all I'm extremely impressed and satisfied with this set. I wish they had larger supplemental sets so you could expand, buying 100 extra Hydrogens, 50 extra Nitrogens and Carbons. Then I could make a whole twist of DNA . . . Sigh (Cat toys for nerds, indeed!!!).

Customer Rating: 

Very helpful model kit, not necessarily ideal for biochem as there are not enough individual atoms but very helpful with orientation etc.

Customer Rating: 

It is a very useful tool even for professional chemists. I am a professional chemist and constantly use it for stereochemistry prediction of Diels-Alder reaction.

Customer Rating: 

Excellent quality, very useful for general, organic and inorganic chemistry. The only problem is that there are not a lot of atoms to build large molecules like sucrose, but for it is great for visualizing things like the chair conformation of cyclohexane.