A novel one-week intersession lecture-lab hybrid course on nanomaterials is presented. The course provided a combination of background theory and hands-on laboratory experiments to educate students about nanomaterials and nanotechnology. The design of the course, subject matter, and laboratory experiments are discussed. Topics and level were…

Traditional curriculum for teaching bonding often fosters the use of over-simplifications and over-generalizations. Therefore, there is a need for a presentation that is consistent with current scientific knowledge and that provides the student with the proper intellectual infrastructure for further studies. In this article, we present a general…

This article describes an approach to teaching organic chemistry, which is to have students build their knowledge of organic chemistry upon a strong foundation of the fundamental concepts of the subject. Specifically, the article focuses upon a core set of concepts that I call "the six pillars of organic chemistry": electronegativity, polar…

As part of an effort to infuse our physical chemistry laboratory with biologically relevant, investigative experiments, we detail four integrated thermodynamic experiments that characterize the denaturation (or unfolding) and self-interaction of hen egg white lysozyme as a function of pH and ionic strength. Students first use Protein Explorer to…

Attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy is a useful technique for measuring the infrared spectra of solids and liquids as well as probing adsorption on particle surfaces. The use of FTIR-ATR spectroscopy in organic and inorganic chemistry laboratory courses as well as in undergraduate research was presented…

Animations of the particulate level of matter are widely available for use in chemistry classes and are often the primary means of representing molecular behavior. These animations may also be viewed by individual students using textbook Web sites, although without reinforcement or feedback. It is not known to what extent the material in these…

This article describes several applications of the use of solubility data. It is not meant to be exhaustive but rather to show that knowledge of solubility data is required in a variety of technical applications that assist in the design of chemical processes. (Contains 3 figures and 1 table.)

Prerequisites for the Developmental Biology course at Augustana College are introductory courses in zoology and cell biology. After introductory courses students appreciate the fact that proteins have three-dimensional structures; however, they often fail to recognize how protein interactions with other cellular components can lead to specific…

The Kronig-Penney problem is a textbook example for discussing band dispersions and band gap formation in periodic layered media. For example, in photonic crystals, the behaviour of bands next to the band edges is important for further discussions of such effects as inhibited light emission, slow light and negative index of refraction. However,…

This article describes an upper-level instrumental laboratory for undergraduates that explores the complementary nature of IR and NMR spectroscopy for analysis of several edible fats and oils that are structurally similar but differ in physical properties and health implications. Five different fats and oils are analyzed for average chain length,…

The interactive nature of computer simulation allows students to develop a deeper understanding of the laws of charged particle optics. Here, the use of commercially available optical design programs is described as a tool to aid in solving charged particle optics problems. We describe simple and practical demonstrations of basic electrostatic…

The combustion of hydrogen in air is quite complex with at least 28 mechanistic steps and twelve reaction species. Most of the species involved are radicals (having unpaired electrons) in nature. Among the various species generated, a few are stable, including hydrogen peroxide. In a normal hydrogen flame, the hydrogen peroxide goes on to further…

Various methods for the determination of the molecular weight distribution (MWD) of different polymer samples are presented. The study shows that the molecular weight averages and distribution of a polymerization completely depend on the characteristics of the reaction itself.

The plausible and frequently used explanation of the singlet and triplet wave functions for a two-electron system is presented. Its findings reveal that the antisymmetric triplet spatial wave function keeps electrons apart, while the symmetric singlet spatial wave function permits electrons to be close together.

The evolution of Raman instrumentation from the time of the initial report of the phenomenon in 1928 to 2006 is discussed. The first instruments were prism-based spectrographs using lenses for collimation and focusing and the 21st century instruments are also spectrographs, but they use CCD cameras. The Lippmann filter technology that appears to…