The anomalous thermal expansion of water in the 0 °C-4 °C range is extremely important to life on Earth, but it is normally not presented experimentally in educational settings. This paper presents a simple experiment to explore the anomalous thermal expansion of water in the 0 °C-4 °C range and the heat exchange processes in natural bodies of…

Millions of people do not have access to clean drinking water; thus, cost-efficient water treatment systems are vital. Chemists, environmentalists, technicians, and engineers will be the professionals making breakthroughs in this industry. This laboratory experiment aims to introduce undergraduate students to the removal of pollutants from water…

The design and operation of the vapor-absorption refrigerator (VAR) are described using the principles and tools typically covered in upper-division undergraduate physical chemistry courses. The objective is to enable students to understand in detail how this device works and how it compares with more typical vapor-compression refrigerators.…

Physics and chemistry students learn several methods to determine the density of materials. While measuring the mass of materials is usually simple, volume measurements are more complex. For simple shapes the volume may be determined by measuring its geometry; for more complex shapes students often use Archimedes' principle. However, neither of…

This paper describes an upper-division undergraduate exercise involving the synthesis and iodometric and infrared spectroscopic analysis of the peroxide double salt [Zn(NH[subscript 3])[subscript 4]][Mo(O[subscript 2])[subscript 4]]. Here, iodometric methods are employed to determine the peroxide content of the compound, a procedure widely used…

For 26 years, it has been assumed by some that the thermodynamics of open-system biochemical reactions must be executed by performing Legendre transformations on the terms involving the species whose concentrations are being held fixed. In contrast, standard nontransformed thermodynamics applies to chemical processes. However, it has recently been…

Two bodies initially at different temperatures gathered into an isolated container exchange heat and reach an equilibrium state with a common final temperature. During the process, the system is out of equilibrium and its intermediate temperature is not well defined. By conceiving a quasi-static process with infinitesimal steps from the initial to…

All analytical techniques are governed by the principles of physical chemistry, and chromatography is certainly no exception. By examining the underlying concepts of size exclusion chromatography (SEC), students can gain greater appreciation of and insight into the science and utility of thermodynamics, as well as solution properties of…

Laboratory experiences are a key and integral part of the chemistry degree that are intended to provide the students the necessary training for laboratory work and improve their scientific reasoning/research abilities and their understanding of the uncertainty in experimental measurements. Despite the unquestionable capacity of hands-on laboratory…

The effect of surfactant adsorption on surface tension, as well as associated thermodynamic concepts are introduced in a laboratory experiment designed for undergraduate students. Using a reliable and accessible method, students measure the surface tension of aqueous solutions at different concentrations of sodium dodecyl sulfate. Students collect…

Project-based learning has been shown to be an effective pedagogical strategy that motivates students and thus promotes learning. In this article we describe a project-based unit centered on the physics of solar cookers (Fig. 1 and 3). Our goal was to elevate the solar cooker from a summer camp activity to a college-level project that could be…

Students come to class with ideas about science content and the practices used to generate knowledge. Their lived experience provides them with basic ideas about how the world works. Tapping into their innate understandings and testing their ideas allows them to construct a more accurate understanding. Research shows that all students are ready to…

Thermogravimetry coupled with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (TG-FTIR) is a useful technique for the thermal and structural characterization of materials at academic and research levels. This paper describes an experiment for chemistry students to understand the use of TG-FTIR for advanced qualitative and quantitative thermal analysis…

In many textbooks of chemical-engineering thermodynamics, a gas mixture obeying the fundamental law pV[subscript m] = RT is most often called ideal-gas mixture (in some rare cases, the term perfect-gas mixture can be found). These textbooks also define the fundamental concept of ideal solution which in theory, can be applied indifferently to…

As the need for alternative energy becomes increasingly important, energy research and related industries are rapidly expanding. This lab incorporates current energy-storage research into a second-year lab that instills real-world, industry-relevant knowledge and skills while teaching and reinforcing physical-chemistry concepts. A manganese oxide…