A multistep assembly of gold nanoparticle self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on glass surfaces is proposed, as a third-year undergraduate experiment. The process includes self-assembly (SA) and electrostatic self-assembly (ESA) methods, which are central approaches in modern surface and materials engineering. The products are analyzed using…

Wheat powdery mildew is an important fungal pathogen of wheat with an obligatory biotrophic lifestyle (a parasite that can only develop on a living host). We investigated the genetics of this host-pathogen interaction by using phenotyping and PCR assays to detect genes in both wheat and powdery mildew, which are known determinants of the outcome…

Here, we present a laboratory activity in which the students work on an analysis of a questioned document that was written with one out of five possible pens. As a forensics study, the activity applied chemistry and analytical chemistry tools to solve the case. The students were able to apply polarity and solubility concepts to select and discard…

Previous educational articles on microfluidic technology mainly focused on continuous microfluidics, so we set up an undergraduate laboratory experiment to introduce droplet microfluidics to students. Students can understand the concept of microfluidic channels and the principles of droplet microfluidics, prepare polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)…

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…

Calculating analytical uncertainties as a part of method validation is a relevant aspect of field and laboratory practices in instrumental analytical chemistry subjects, which usually require complex algorithms. This work describes the development and didactic use of an automatic and straightforward informatics tool, implemented in an Excel macro,…

This experiment demonstrates that copper(II) chloride dihydrate (CuCl[subscript 2]·2H[subscript 2]O) in different solvents (acetone, isopropyl alcohol, or water) displays divergent colors and visible-near IR spectra. Both the reactions of these solutions with 2 equiv of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and the direct solid-state reaction of CuCl[subscript…

An advanced research discovery laboratory course in inorganic chemistry has been developed to engage undergraduate students in authentic research experiences directly related to concepts and theory taught in the lecture portion of the course. The 12-week laboratory involves an initial 4 weeks of training experiments on inorganic/organometallic…

A one-pot multicomponent synthesis of unsymmetrical indole-substituted methane derivative based on two consecutive reactions of p-methylbenzaldehyde with N-methylindole and 5,5-dimethyl-1,3-cyclohexanedione is described as an experiment that was carried out by second-year undergraduate chemistry students individually in a laboratory classroom. The…

ChatGPT is a brand new, free AI chatbot that has the potential to produce a seismic shift in chemistry education, especially in written lab reports. An example is explored in which ChatGPT is used to write the discussion portion of a lab report. Ways to detect the use of ChatGPT are also discussed.

By hosting a college students' laboratory skills contest, we provide an interesting activity for students to cultivate good laboratory practices and thereby improve their laboratory skills. The substance of this contest is the detection of the hardness of water, which involves numerous laboratory skills such as solution preparation, weight by…

The dangers of organic dye pollutants and environmental pollution improvement through photocatalytic degradation are important courses in applied chemistry programs in universities. Zinc oxide (ZnO)-based nanomaterials are potent catalytic agents against organic dyes, but few experiments are available for students to understand their role and…

Quantum dots are colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals that display size-dependent electronic and optical properties. These materials are a visual demonstration of a quantum-mechanical effect. Here we present a laboratory exercise for undergraduate/Bachelor students as an introduction to colloidal nanocrystals and quantum dots. The students…

Metabolic Control Analysis (MCA) is a systems biology approach that measures the control of a metabolic step on the overall flux of a metabolic pathway. In undergraduate courses in biochemistry, learning of MCA can be encouraged by experimental activities demonstrating practical applications of the MCA theory. In this work, we present a laboratory…

Chemists have always designed and deployed cross-disciplinary approaches that interface chemistry with other disciplines to proffer solutions to many human problems. We designed a laboratory experiment that implements chemistry concepts in a biological model to prime undergraduate students to appreciate interdisciplinarity as an approach to…