Living cells are crowded. The presence of so many macromolecules packed into a confined environment affects the structure and function of biological components, and the kinetics and thermodynamics of biochemical reactions. In fact, crowding studies have already led to important biological insights, such as the existence of metabolons and other…

A physical model has been designed to help students visualize concepts involved when solving infrared spectra. The physical model uses balls and springs to incorporate the harmonic oscillator model and Hooke's law to study dynamic vibrations within diatomic molecules. Various concepts are addressed with the model to abstract principles about how…

The ACS Guidelines for bachelor's degrees in chemistry call for the curriculum to include polymer chemistry principles and the synthesis of different classes of macromolecules. Organic chemistry can provide an important introduction to polymer chemistry principles, and photochemically induced radical polymerization is one method for generating…

Time-resolved luminescence lifetime measurements are an important photophysical technique. However, access to this technique at the undergraduate level is limited by the expense of the instrumentation needed to create the well-defined light pulses required to measure the luminescence decay of an excited state molecule. We present here an…

Synthesis and characterization of nanomaterials yields opportunities for instruction of related topics in solution chemistry and materials science, as well as spectroscopy connecting to band theory, the "particle in a box" quantum mechanical model, and thermodynamics. In collaboration with an undergraduate research assistant, we have…

The use of methanol-water mixtures as solvents for sample preparations is common in many instrumental analytical procedures for compound quantification at trace concentration levels. The reliability of the analytical method depends upon several factors including consistency of instrumental setup and calibration, quality of standards used and…

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…

A safe and inexpensive laboratory for a first-year general chemistry course has been developed which allows students to explore important properties of carbon dioxide, particularly its behavior as a greenhouse gas. Students witness and measure air displacement to compare calculated gas densities and pressures inside a CO[subscript 2]-filled…

Many laboratory courses consist of short and seemingly unconnected individual laboratory exercises. To increase the course consistency, relevance, and student engagement, we have developed a research-inspired and project-based module, "From Gene to Structure and Function". This 2.5-week full-day biochemistry and structural biology module…

The development and evaluation of a 6-hours laboratory class, based on capillary electrophoresis (CE) and the detection of microbial contaminants, is described. It can be easily scaled up or down, to suit class sizes up to 188 and completed in a shorter time scale. CE uses narrow-bore fused-silica capillaries to separate a complex array of large…

Students collect magnetic susceptibility data to verify that Hund's rule correctly predicts electronic configurations. Systems examined include three commercially available lanthanide(III)-containing complexes of the form M(acac)[subscript 3](H[subscript 2]O)[subscript 2] (where M = La(III), Nd(III), and Gd(III), and acac denotes the [CH[subscript…

Molecular symmetry plays a central role in chemistry education with regard to predicting chemical properties such as bonding and spectroscopic transitions. Better understanding of the symmetry of molecules requires high visual-spatial thinking ability. Conventional teaching methodologies, with limited teaching aides, fall short in providing a…

A procedure for the study of structural differences and intermolecular attraction between ethanol and 1-butanol based in laboratory work is described. This study provides comparisons of data retrieved from both a determination of boiling point and gas chromatography traces for the mixture. The methodology reported here should provide instructors…

The Franck-Condon Principle (FCP), the key concept for describing vibronic spectra, results from the large disparity between the time scales of electrons and nuclei in molecules. Yet in an undergraduate lecture, the FCP is nearly always rationalized from a time independent quantum mechanical viewpoint, due to students' lack of knowledge of time…

Here we present a new undergraduate laboratory that will introduce the concepts of time-resolved spectroscopy and provide insight into the natural time scales on which chemical dynamics occur through direct measurement. A quantitative treatment of the acquired data will provide a deeper understanding of the role of quantum mechanics and various…