Anaerobic digestion is a complex biochemical process that is represented by the stoichiometric Buswell's equation. Buswell's equation is the study of the interface among biochemistry, mathematics, and chemistry. Students often have difficulty in understanding the nature of biochemical stoichiometry. Buswell's equation is significant for the…

Modifications are presented for the iodine clock reaction to introduce the concept of activity and to help students better appreciate molecular aspects of chemical equilibrium. The addition of an unreactive salt affects the activity of the reactants in the iodine clock reaction. The difference in activity affects how long the iodine clock reaction…

An activity of using waste plastic caps and wooden sticks (or steel wires) to construct crystal structures is described. Caps with different colors represent different atoms/ions/interstices, and sticks are employed to carry the caps and describe the positions of atoms/ions/interstices. The cap-and-stick model clearly demonstrates crystal…

Auxiliary Tanabe-Sugano diagrams are presented. They enable a rapid and reliable graphical derivation of Dq/B and C/B crystal field parameter ratios from spectroscopic data. Using these values, one can calculate Dq and B by employing the original Tanabe-Sugano diagrams. Subsequently, C can also be calculated irrespective of the value C/B fixed in…

Valence shell electron pair repulsion theory (VSEPR) as explained in most textbooks predicts that substituents bonded to a central atom in AX[subscript n]E[subscript z][superscript c] species (A = main-group central atom, X = substituent, E = lone pair on central atom, c = charge) will change their X-A-X angles to bend away from the lone pairs.…

Education in organic chemistry is highly reliant on molecular representations. Students abstract information from representations to make sense of submicroscopic interactions. This study investigates relationships between differing representations: bond-line structures, ball-and-stick, or electrostatic potential maps (EPMs), and predicting partial…

A new teaching resource comprised of raw X-ray diffraction data sets from crystallography experiments has been compiled. The aim of this resource is to provide a tool with which to plug the teaching gap between crystals and chemical structures present at various levels of education, as well as providing examples for early stage researchers and…

Biochemistry students at the introductory level easily comprehend the importance of energy-yielding oxidation and reduction biochemical processes, but nevertheless, they fight with words "oxidation" and "reduction" (and with the corresponding adjectives, "oxidized" and "reduced") applied in biochemistry…

When structure-property relationships are discussed in inorganic chemistry and materials science, the common perception is that materials with the same composition and atomic arrangement have the same properties. In this laboratory experiment, we show that "processing"--the exact conditions under which materials are made--can in fact…

Approximations can help to orient the student in an organic chemistry laboratory. There the student needs to develop the solvent systems for the reaction and isolation of organic reactants and products. The adage "like dissolves like" helps in this regard, but this approach is vague and entirely qualitative. More quantitative approaches…

Climate change is a critical scientific and social issue of our time, yet the topic is not frequently discussed by the general public. Additionally, misconceptions about the topic persist. One important aspect of climate change is the greenhouse effect. This activity adds a greenhouse gas discussion to an existing module about molecular shape and…

Periodicity in electronic molar entropy values has been shown on the basis of the electronic structures of the elements. Also, with the approximations discussed herein, one can estimate the electronic molar entropy without atomic spectroscopy results. All of this can be accomplished by showing the connection between the vector model of the atom…

The NMR spectrometer is a commonly used spectroscopic instrument that records resonance frequencies of nuclei present in molecular systems. While the NMR frequencies fall within the radio frequency regime for a given molecular system, they are presented in terms of chemical shifts in the audio frequency regime, thereby having the versatility to be…

Appealing to students' affect in academic settings, such as demonstrating chemistry's relevance to their life, is one strategy instructors may use to support students' in learning. This study investigates the types of connections that students make to organic chemistry when responding to an open-ended writing assignment. Students enrolled in an…

A mixture of salt water and isopropyl alcohol is immiscible, forming two separate liquids with the organic layer on top and aqueous layer on bottom. When universal indicator is added to such a mixture, all of the indicator compounds in the universal indicator preferentially dissolve in the alcohol--except for phenolphthalein at high pH. Mixtures…