During the years 1873-1879, J. Willard Gibbs published his now-famous set of articles that form the basis of the current perspective on chemical thermodynamics. The second article of this series, "A Method of Geometrical Representation of the Thermodynamic Properties of Substances by Means of Surfaces," published in 1873, is particularly notable…

A simple, affordable hydrogen proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell laboratory was developed through a collaborative effort between faculty and undergraduate students at Brown University. It has been incorporated into the introductory chemistry curriculum and successfully implemented in a class of over 500 students per academic year for over 3…

Computational chemistry is commonly addressed in the quantum mechanics course of undergraduate physical chemistry curricula. Since quantum mechanics traditionally follows the thermodynamics course, there is a lack of curricula relating computational chemistry to thermodynamics. A method integrating molecular modeling software into a semester long…

Drawing a schematic energy diagram for the decomposition of H[subscript 2]O[subscript 2] catalyzed by MnO[subscript 2] through a simple thermometric measurement outlined in this study is intended to integrate students' understanding of thermochemistry and kinetics of chemical reactions. The reaction enthalpy, delta[subscript r]H, is…

This laboratory was developed by undergraduate students in collaboration with the course instructor as part of a peer-developed and peer-led lab curriculum in a general chemistry course. The goal was to explore the hypothesis that crystal violet lactone was responsible for the thermochromic properties of a sipping straw using a FT-IR for…

A nationwide survey of the undergraduate physical chemistry course was conducted to investigate the depth and breadth of content that is covered, how content is delivered, how student understanding is assessed, and the experiences and beliefs of instructors. The survey was administered to instructors of physical chemistry (N = 331) at American…

There is an increasing focus across all educational sectors to ensure that learning objectives are aligned with learning activities and assessments. An attractive approach previously published is that of curriculum alignment projects. This paper discusses the use of the fun and famous "Elephant's Toothpaste" experiment as a customizable…

Lightsticks, or glowsticks as they are sometimes called, are perhaps the chemist's quintessential toy. Because they are easy to activate and appealing to observe, experimenting with lightsticks provides a great way to get young people interested in science. Thus, we have used lightsticks to teach chemical concepts in a variety of outreach settings…

An undergraduate laboratory experiment is described to measure Henry's law constants of organic compounds using a bubble column and gas chromatography flame ionization detector (GC-FID). This experiment is designed for upper-division undergraduate laboratory courses and can be implemented in conjunction with physical chemistry, analytical…

The hydrogenation of alkenes by heterogeneous catalysts has been studied for 80 years. The foundational mechanism was proposed by Horiuti and Polanyi in 1934 and consists of three steps: (i) alkene adsorption on the surface of the hydrogenated metal catalyst, (ii) hydrogen migration to the beta-carbon of the alkene with formation of a delta-bond…

A set of exercises for use in a typical physical chemistry laboratory course are described, modeling the unimolecular dissociation of the ethyl radical to form ethylene and atomic hydrogen. Students analyze the computational results both qualitatively and quantitatively. Qualitative structural changes are compared to approximate predicted values…

An upper-division undergraduate chemistry experiment is described which utilizes DigiSim software to simulate cyclic voltammetry (CV). Four mechanisms were studied: a reversible electron transfer with no subsequent or proceeding chemical reactions, a reversible electron transfer followed by a reversible chemical reaction, a reversible chemical…

Electrochemical cell potentials have no simple relationship with temperature but depend on the interplay between the sign and magnitude of the isothermal temperature coefficient, dE[degrees]/dT, and on the magnitude of the reaction quotient, Q. The variations in possible responses of standard and non-standard cell potentials to changes in the…

Though heterogeneous nucleation of liquid droplets on a smooth surface (such as a bathroom mirror) is a classical topic in nucleation theory, it is not well-known that this topic is actually a pedagogical example of heterogeneous catalysis: the one and only effect of the surface is to lower the activation Gibbs energy of droplet formation. In…

This undergraduate physical chemistry laboratory exercise introduces students to the study of probability distributions both experimentally and using computer simulations. Students perform the classic coin toss experiment individually and then pool all of their data together to study the effect of experimental sample size on the binomial…