It is crucial nowadays to predict in a fast and simple manner physical-chemical behaviors like, the size-dependent optical properties of gold nanospheres (Au NSs). The idea behind this experiment is trying to replace (as much as possible) robust and expensive microscopy techniques with UV-vis spectrophotometry and friendly simulations. Students…

The development and application of a simulator designed with Excel spreadsheets to teach procedural skills in atomic absorption spectrometry and atomic emission spectrometry are proposed. For the development of the simulator, different analytical procedures were followed including analysis of pharmaceutical, forensic, and environmental samples.…

Optimization of experimental conditions in chromatography is recognized as a wear-and-tear process involving hundreds of experiments in order to maximize the number of separated compounds for each sample. The critical thinking skills and practices entailed cannot be achieved with students in a conventional lecture class. This report provides a…

When searching for a known target, mental representations of target features, or templates, guide attention towards matching objects and facilitate recognition. When only distractor features are known, distractor templates allow irrelevant objects to be recognised and attention to be shifted away. This is particularly true in X-ray baggage search,…

The Beer-Lambert law is a core spectroscopic relationship widely used across the undergraduate chemistry curriculum and beyond. The derivation of this model is a common topic for upper-level chemistry courses. But, due to its abstract nature, this derivation can often seem like a mathematical exercise detached from the molecular origins of…

UV-vis absorption spectroscopy is one of the most accessible spectroscopic techniques at the high school educational level, and it is usually introduced in analytical chemistry courses due to its high versatility and to the wide range of applications in many fields of chemistry. Within this framework, we have developed an easy-to-use"…

Computational and atmospheric chemistry are two important branches of contemporary chemistry. With the present topical nature of climate change and global warming, it is more crucial than ever that students are aware of and exposed to atmospheric chemistry, with an emphasis on how modeling may aid in understanding how atmospherically relevant…

Lecture-only chemistry courses without a dedicated laboratory component present a significant challenge for instructors to reinforce course content with hands-on learning experiences. This is especially true for lecture courses in which students are unable to directly visualize and operate instrumentation. Herein, we present an in-class activity…

Students used an Excel spreadsheet and a Jupyter notebook located at https://chemcompute.org/jupyterhub/ to generate data in lieu of face-to-face laboratory instruction during COVID-19. This communication discusses strengths and weaknesses of both exercises. First, students generated absorbance data using an Excel spreadsheet, but they were…

Basic understanding of nuclear science enhances our daily-life experience in many areas, such as the environment, medicine, electric power generation, and even politics. Yet typical school curricula do not provide for experiments that explore the topic. We present a means by which educators can use the ubiquitous webcam and inexpensive sources of…

This laboratory introduces students to laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) for the analysis of metals in soil and rock samples. LIBS employs a laser-initiated spark to induce electronic excitation of metal atoms. Ensuing atomic emission allows for qualitative and semiquantitative analysis. The students use LIBS to analyze a series of…