Take-home examinations were utilized during the COVID-19 pandemic for upper-level analytical chemistry lecture courses. The questions were often scenarios which required the students to determine the best type of instrument to use and how to go about the experiment. Answers submitted were well thought out and detailed, showing that the students…

An undergraduate experiment combining synthesis, NMR analysis and mechanistic understanding is reported. The students perform an organocatalyzed cyclopropanation reaction of (E)-dec-2-enal and are then required to determine the diastereoselectivity and assign the relative configuration of each product using NMR spectroscopy.

The electrophilic addition of a hydrohalic acid (HX) to an alkene is often one of the first reactions learned in second-year undergraduate organic chemistry classes. During the ensuing discussion of the mechanism, it is shown that this reaction follows Markovnikov's rule, which states that the hydrogen atom will attach to the carbon with fewer…

Carbon nanomaterials have promising utility in chemical sensing including applications in preserving occupational safety, monitoring of environmental pollution, and human health. While recent advances in device fabrication and molecular design of functional materials have enabled rapid fabrication of chemical sensors from carbon nanomaterials,…

The different ways microscale and green chemistry allow reducing the deleterious impacts of chemistry on human health and the environment are discussed in terms of their different basic paradigms: green chemistry follows the ecologic paradigm and microscale the risk paradigm. A study of the synthesis of 1-bromobutane at macro- ? microscale (109.3…

This laboratory experiment showcases electroless deposition, an autocatalytic reduction process performed in aqueous solution containing a metal ion in the presence of a reducing agent yielding a coherent metal film. One set of experiments has been performed by second-semester general chemistry students in a 3 h lab session. After preparing an…

Food spoilage has an enormous economic impact, and microbial food spoilage plays a significant role in food waste and loss; subsequently, an equally significant portion of undergraduate food microbiology instruction should be dedicated to spoilage microbiology. Here, we describe a set of undergraduate microbiology laboratory exercises that focus…

A laboratory project for the upper-division physical chemistry laboratory is described, and it combines IR and Raman spectroscopies with Gaussian electronic structure calculations to determine the structure of the oxalate anion in solid alkali oxalates and in aqueous solution. The oxalate anion has two limiting structures whose vibrational spectra…

A laboratory experiment visually exploring two opposite basic principles of fluorescence of aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ) and aggregation-induced emission (AIE) is demonstrated. The students would prepared two salicylaldehyde-based Schiff bases through a simple one-pot condensation reaction of one equiv of 1,2-diamine with 2 equiv of…

Electrically conducting polymers are one of the promising alternative materials for technological applications in many interdisciplinary areas, including chemistry, material sciences, and engineering. This experiment was designed for providing undergraduate students with a quick and practical approach for preparation of a polyaniline-conducting…

As nonrenewable resources deplete and educators seek relevant interdisciplinary content for organic chemistry instruction, biobased laboratory experiments present themselves as potential alternatives to petroleum-based transformations, which offer themselves as sustainable variations on important themes. Following the principles of green chemistry…

It was planned to introduce online pre-laboratory session activities to a first-year undergraduate physics laboratory course to encourage a minimum level of student preparation for experiments outside the laboratory environment. A group of 16 and 17 year old laboratory work-experience students were tasked to define and design a pre-laboratory…

An introductory bioinformatics laboratory experiment focused on protein analysis has been developed that is suitable for undergraduate students in introductory biochemistry courses. The laboratory experiment is designed to be potentially used as a "stand-alone" activity in which students are introduced to basic bioinformatics tools and…

Presented is a project-based learning (PBL) laboratory approach for an upper-division environmental chemistry or quantitative analysis course. In this work, a combined laboratory class of 11 environmental chemistry students developed a method based on published EPA methods for the extraction of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and its…

A green, aza-Michael reaction is described that can be used to teach undergraduate students conjugate addition of nitrogen nucleophile to an a,ß-unsaturated ester. Students analyze spectral data of the product obtained from the assigned reaction to determine product structure and propose the mechanism of its formation. The experiment requires…