There is a growing need for chemistry students to be able to handle and manipulate large datasets and analyze them in an efficient and accessible way. This creates the need to develop course materials that introduce these topics early in the undergraduate curriculum. To address this growing need, this activity introduced RStudio to students…

Removing the pollutants from various wastewater is crucial to the environment, ecology, and humans. However, the pollutants are generally removed by chemical decomposition, which not only consumes a lot of energy but also produces carbon emissions. Electrochemical flocculation is effective to extract pollutant molecules and heavy ions from…

Here, a relatively simple laboratory experiment of a physical pendulum, suitable for students of science and engineering in the first courses of university physics, is presented to illustrate its dynamic behavior and to determine its inertia moment. To this end, a long wooden rod of length L = 99.8 cm and cross-section radius R = 1.73 cm was used…

With the increase of waste paper, environmental pollution and atmospheric impact have become global problems. The cellulose contained in waste paper has the advantages of being renewable and biodegradable and can be applied to many fields to achieve sustainable development. At present, thermal management materials, as a new type of material, have…

In this paper, we present a concise and technique-heavy route to the synthesis of dimedone for a second-year organic chemistry curriculum. Our preparation of dimedone guides students through a Michael addition followed by a Dieckmann cyclization, basic ester hydrolysis, and thermal decarboxylation, while allowing time for mechanistic discussion…

Cycloadditions in combination with multicomponent reactions are among the most valuable synthetic tools used by organic chemists to construct cyclic and heterocyclic compounds in a straightforward way. Although cycloadditions, such as the Diels--Alder reaction, are mainly covered in basic and advanced organic courses for undergraduate students,…

Multistep synthesis is a key capstone experience in organic laboratory instruction. Here, a four-step synthesis of avobenzone, an active component in sunscreens, has been developed that can be completed in two 4 h laboratory periods. This synthesis incorporates green principles and includes an aldol condensation, electrophilic addition of bromine…

This report describes a laboratory experiment for an undergraduate-level inorganic chemistry or biochemistry course involving the study of the kinetics of the catecholase activity of a synthetic nickel­(II)-oximate complex. A model substrate, 3,5-di-tert-butylcatechol(DBC), undergoes aerobic oxidation to 3,5-di-tert-butylbenzoquinone (DBQ) in the…

The essential component of expanding an undergraduate curriculum is the inclusion of lab experiments in nanoscience and nanomaterials, which significantly impact health and the environment through their use in food, cosmetics, agriculture, and medicine. We designed a laboratory experiment based on the atomic force microscopy (AFM) analysis of the…

A multistep synthesis of a novel arylidene 3­(2"H")-furanone has been designed and optimized for the second-year organic laboratory. The three-step sequence consists of a nucleophilic substitution, intramolecular cyclization, and acid-catalyzed aldol condensation, and can be carried out within two 3 h laboratory periods. The final…

Using crystal structure data, site directed mutagenesis, and real-time kinetic assays, students designed, expressed, and purified engineered mutants of human insulin-degrading enzyme (IDE). Students designed their own IDE mutants following "in silico" analysis, used inverse PCR to generate mutant plasmid expression constructs, expressed…

Undergraduate physics laboratory exercises are very important in shaping students' attitude to science, especially for future teachers. Recently, it is necessary to look for ways to easily create large quantities of experimental sets, not only for institutional use, but also for sets that can be produced in large quantities and distributed for use…

This paper presents a series of experiments that focus on light polarization and polarimetry. Such experiments were conducted with the use of commercial Polaroids, light sensors, and laser pointers, and were designed for an undergraduate food science students physics lab.

As quantum information science and technology (QIST) is becoming more prevalent and occurring not only in research labs but also in industry, many educators are considering how best to incorporate learning about quantum mechanics into various levels of education. Although much of the focus has been on quantum concepts in nonlab courses, current…

During the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown, both schools and universities faced significant challenges in moving teaching from an in-situ setting to a remote one, this included laboratory experiments. This paper presents an experiment developed to use a phone's in built pressure sensor, common to most smart phones. By using this sensor…