Assimilating green chemistry principles in nanotechnology is a developing area of nanoscience research nowadays. Thus, there is a growing demand to develop environmentally friendly and sustainable methods for the synthesis of nanoparticles that utilize nontoxic chemicals, environmentally benign solvents, and renewable materials to avoid their…

In this experiment, students learn how to find the unknown concentration of sodium acetate using both the graphical treatment of standard addition and the standard addition equation. In the graphical treatment of standard addition, the peak area of the methyl peak in each of the sodium acetate standard solutions is found by integration using…

In this discovery-oriented laboratory experiment, students use solid-phase synthesis techniques to construct a dipeptide containing an unknown amino acid. Following synthesis and cleavage from the polymeric support, electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry is employed to identify the unknown amino acid that was used in the peptide coupling. This…

The measurement of trace levels of bisphenol A (BPA) leached out of household plastics using solid-phase microextraction (SPME) with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) is reported here. BPA is an endocrine-disrupting compound used in the industrial manufacture of polycarbonate plastic bottles and epoxy resin can liners. This experiment…

A directed study for the undergraduate physical chemistry laboratory for determining the transference number of H[superscript +](aq) using a modified moving boundary method is presented. The laboratory study combines Faraday's laws of electrolysis with mole ratios and the perfect gas equation. The volume of hydrogen gas produced at the cathode is…

An alloy is an intimate association of two or more metals, with or without a definite composition, which has metallic properties. Heterogeneous alloys, such as tin-lead (Sn/Pb) solders, consist of a mixture of crystalline phases with different compositions. A homogeneous alloy with a unique composition having the lowest possible melting point is…

Readily assembled mini-galvanic cells can be employed to compare their observed voltages with those predicted from the Nernst equation and to determine solubility products for silver halides and overall formation constants for metal-ammonia complexes. Results obtained by students in both an honors-level first-year course in general chemistry and…

A laboratory experiment based on the titration of boric acid with strong base in the presence of d-mannitol is described. Boric acid is a very weak acid and direct titration with NaOH is not possible. An auxiliary reagent that contributes to the release of protons in a known stoichiometry facilitates the acid-base titration. Students obtain the…

A microfluidics-based laboratory experiment for the analysis of DNA fragments in an analytical undergraduate course is presented. The experiment is set within the context of food species identification via amplified DNA fragments. The students are provided with berry samples from which they extract DNA and perform polymerase chain reaction (PCR)…

A laboratory experiment currently used in an undergraduate physical chemistry lab to investigate the rates of crystallization of a polymer is described. Specifically, the radial growth rates of typical disc-shaped crystals, called spherulites, growing between microscope glass slides are measured and the data are treated according to polymer…

This laboratory investigation challenges students to synthesize, analyze, and compare viable alternative fuels to Diesel No. 2 using a renewable resource, as well as readily available reagents and supplies. During the experiment, students synthesized biodiesel from soybean oil in an average percent yield of 83.8 ± 6.3%. They then prepared fuel…

Photochemical upconversion is a regenerative process that transforms lower-energy photons into higher-energy light through two sequential bimolecular reactions, triplet sensitization of an appropriate acceptor followed by singlet fluorescence producing triplet-triplet annihilation derived from two energized acceptors. This laboratory directly…

The performance of any engineering component depends on and is limited by the properties of the material from which it is fabricated. It is crucial for engineering students to understand these material properties, interpret them and select the right material for the right application. In this paper we present a new method to engage students with…

It has become clear in current scientific pedagogy that the emersion of students in the scientific process in terms of designing, implementing, and analyzing experiments is imperative for their education; as such, it has been our goal to model this active learning process in the classroom and laboratory in the context of a genuine scientific…

Dehydrations of "cis"- and "trans"-2-methylcyclohexanol mixtures were carried out with 60% sulfuric acid at 78-80 [degrees]C as a function of time and the products were identified by gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) analysis. The compounds identified in the reaction mixtures include alkenes, 1-, 3-, and 4-methylcyclohexenes and…