An activity is described that uses simple materials and an easy-to-perform protocol to estimate the Curie temperature of nickel, which is the temperature at which nickel loses its ferromagnetism. To do so, an object made of nickel metal is heated with a lighter until it loses its ferromagnetism. The metal is allowed to drop into a beaker that…

In this laboratory experiment, students modify a series of surfaces and explore the effects of varying surface chemistry and texture on wettability by different probe liquids. Students begin by building a simple contact angle goniometer utilizing their mobile phone cameras. Next, they contrast the wettability of planar glass substrates…

Under most conditions, a liquid mixture does not have long-range structural order and may be considered to be a homogeneous collection of molecules in random motion. However, if a single-phase critical mixture of a partially miscible liquid--liquid system is subjected to a small temperature jump into the two-phase region, then structural coherence…

As simple and ubiquitous redox-active organic molecules, quinones participate in diverse electron transfer processes in chemistry and biological systems for energy transformation and signal transduction. We introduce here a practical exercise to study the redox potentials of benzoquinone and its two derivatives by combining the electrochemistry…

Thermodynamics education is not easy both for students and teachers. But the Entropy, Chemical potential, Real gas structure, Fugacity, Molecular interaction, Supercritical phenomena chapters become more comprehensible, if introduced via the pure real gases' cluster physics chapter. A pure gas consists of the only one type of basic particles,…

As part of their third-year general chemistry program, students at the University of the Côte d'Azur are taught the basics of radioactivity. The view that third-year university students have of the periodic Table of the Elements is often reduced because it ignores the vast majority of isotopes. As part of this program, a practicum devoted to the…

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…

Keto-enol tautomerism is a fundamental concept that examines the migration of a proton between two constitutional isomers, the keto and enol tautomer. Many experiments have been proposed to understand the concept behind Meyer's Rule, which states that the keto tautomer is favored as the solvent polarity increases. However, all the experiments have…

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 reports the development and application of a low-cost multifunctional webcam spectrophotometer for the conduct of molecular absorption and fluorometric measurements. The equipment, which costs approximately US$20 to be fabricated, consists of a webcam, a diffraction grating, and a slit, all positioned inside an MDF box. Spectral…

The effects of kinetic vs thermodynamic control on "endo"/"exo" stereoisomer ratios can be observed in a simple Diels-Alder reaction between "N"-phenylmaleimide and furan. The use of microwave-promoted synthesis affords the cycloadducts in yields ranging from 65-100%, employing reaction times of 1-10 min at…

This paper provides seven topics on sodium hydrogen carbonate (NaHCO[subscript 3]) and its ions for readers looking for familiar material phenomena to strengthen students' understanding of the chemical concepts of thermodynamics. The first concept is the ideal gas law, followed by the van't Hoff equation, Gibbs energy, pH change, chemical…

In this laboratory experiment, students apply a mass-based approach to determine the Henry's law constant for CO[subscript 2] using a small bottle of a diet carbonated beverage. The calculations are challenging; therefore, team-based learning is encouraged. Our students reported values of 0.033 ± 0.003 mol/(L[middle dot]atm) at room temperature…

A revised version of a traditional physical chemistry laboratory experiment has been developed to enhance student discussion in the laboratory and to improve students' connections between physical chemistry concepts and real molecular systems. In this experiment, students explore the keto-enol tautomerization of 2,4-pentanedione. However, unlike…

A newly developed laboratory learning program for high school chemistry courses is discussed, in which students discover the chemical mechanism governing exothermic phenomena during the reaction between a heating agent, namely, calcium oxide (CaO)--aluminum (Al) mixture, and water. Based on prior knowledge of simple heating agents such as CaO, the…