A laboratory experiment emphasizing the structural elucidation of organic compounds has been developed as a discovery exercise. The "unknown" compounds are the products of the pH-controlled oxidation of 4'-methoxyacetophenone with bleach. The chemoselectivity of this reaction is highly dependent on the pH of the reaction media: under basic…

The enantioselective synthesis of drugs is of fundamental importance in the pharmaceutical industry. In this experiment, students synthesize either enantiomer of warfarin, a widely used anticoagulant, in a single step from inexpensive starting materials. Stereoselectivity is induced by a commercial organocatalyst, ("R","R")- or…

Although ionic liquids have been investigated as solvents for many applications and are starting to be used in industrial processes, only a few lab experiments are available to introduce students to these materials. Ionic liquids have been discussed in the context of green chemistry, but few investigations have actually assessed the degree of…

An experimental system for detecting infrared absorption using the photoacoustic (PA) effect is described. It is aimed for use at high-school level to illustrate the difference in infrared (IR) absorption among the gases contained in the atmosphere in connection with the greenhouse effect. The experimental system can be built with readily…

This experiment employs current technology to enhance and extend existing lab content. The basic principles of spectroscopic and electroanalytical techniques and their use in determining material properties are covered in some detail in many undergraduate chemistry programs. However, there are limited examples of laboratory experiments with in…

This article summarizes an experiment on thin-film fabrication with layer-by-layer assembly that is appropriate for undergraduate laboratory courses. The purpose of this experiment is to teach students about self-assembly in the context of thin films and to expose students to the concepts of functional polymeric coatings. Students dip coat…

Preparation of laboratory-scale polyurethane foams is described with formulations that are easy to implement in experiments for undergraduate students. Particular attention is given to formulation aspects that are based on the main chemical reactions occurring in polyurethane production. This allows students to develop alternative formulations to…

This study explores how adding environmental perspectives to a developmental chemistry course affected student learning of both general chemistry and environmental chemistry concepts. In addition to measuring learning changes, changes in students' environmental attitudes and behaviors were also measured. A pretest-posttest design measured…

Our understanding of carbonium ions as intermediates in chemical reaction mechanisms derives from the early work of Julius Stieglitz and the more famous Hans Meerwein, the latter studying the racemization of isobornyl chloride when treated with Lewis acids. This review analyzes how key mechanistic concepts for this reaction evolved and gives the…

A handheld digital microscope (HDM) interfaced to a computer with a presentation projector is used to project an out-of-focus yellow patch on the screen, then the patch is brought into focus to show that, paradoxically, there are red and green but no yellow pixels. Chromaticity diagrams are used to discuss this observation and spectroscopic…

The Madelung constants for binary ionic nanoparticles are determined. The computational method described here sums the Coulombic interactions of each ion in the particle without the use of partial charges commonly used for bulk materials. The results show size-dependent lattice energies. This is a useful concept in teaching how properties such as…

We describe the use of concept maps within a 4-week nanotechnology survey course, designed for first-year undergraduate students. Because of the extremely short time frame of the class, students would be inundated with an overwhelming number of new concepts and definitions. Hence, we employed concept mapping to increase student retention and…

The pedagogical value of having biochemistry and organic chemistry students build and manipulate physical models of chemical species is well established in the literature. Nevertheless, for the most part, the use of molecular models is generally limited to several laboratory exercises or to demonstrations in the classroom setting. A simple…

A classroom exercise is described to introduce enzyme kinetics in an undergraduate biochemistry or chemistry course. The exercise is a simulation in which a student acts as an enzyme that "catalyzes" the unscrewing of a nut from a bolt. With other students assisting, the student enzyme carries out reactions with bolt-nut substrates under different…

When teaching the effect of temperature on biochemical reactions, the problem is usually oversimplified by confining the thermal effect to the catalytic constant, which is identified with the rate constant of the elementary limiting step. Therefore, only positive values for activation energies and values greater than 1 for temperature coefficients…