Integrating Research, Industry, and Sustainability into Applied Inorganic Chemistry Education: An Outcome-Based Curriculum Reform

Abstract

Applied Inorganic Chemistry is a professionally significant course for students majoring in Applied Chemistry because it connects fundamental inorganic theory with industrial production, inorganic synthesis, environmental governance, safety management, and frontier materials research. However, the course is difficult to teach effectively within limited contact hours because students must understand not only reaction principles and production processes, but also thermodynamic feasibility, kinetic control, process selection, resource utilization, pollution prevention, and research-oriented inorganic synthesis. This study develops a teaching reform framework based on the teaching schedule of Applied Inorganic Chemistry offered by the College of Chemistry and Environmental Engineering at Yangtze University. The syllabus allocates 32 lecture hours to ten content modules, including synthetic ammonia, sulfuric
acid, nitric acid, soda ash, caustic soda and chlorine, inorganic synthesis chemistry, thermodynamics and inorganic synthesis, and representative inorganic synthesis methods. It also adopts a two-part assessment structure consisting of in-class performance and tests, and a final research review assignment. Building on outcome-based education, constructive alignment, active learning, problem-based learning, formative assessment, green chemistry education, and discipline-based chemistry education research, this paper proposes a coherent reform model for transforming the course from a mainly content delivery course into a research-oriented, case-supported, literature-informed, and sustainability-integrated learning experience. The proposed model aligns course outcomes, module-level anchor problems, industrial cases, frontier reading tasks, staged research-review training, formative feedback, and assessment rubrics. The article provides a detailed course context analysis, a reconstructed outcome framework, module-by-module teaching design, a research-review pipeline, a rubric-based assessment system, and an implementation and evaluation plan. As a design-based curriculum study, this paper
does not claim empirical improvement in student performance; instead, it presents an implementable and evaluable teaching reform design suitable for future teaching cycles.