The study and analysis of enzymatic reactions are essential for characterizing various biological systems. As part of these procedures, it is important to understand how to quantify the biological activity of these proteins in terms of enzymatic activity. This work proposes a general equation for determining enzymatic activity based on…

This article presents computational chemistry exercises that are designed to be incorporated into an undergraduate physical chemistry course. This activity teaches computational chemistry as it is performed in higher-level research (in a command-line environment and executed on a high-performance computing cluster) to provide students with a…

Theoretical and practical foundations of basic electrochemical concepts of heterogeneous charge transfer reactions that underline electrochemical processes are presented for their detailed study by undergraduate and postgraduate students. Several simple methods for calculating key variables, such as the half-wave potential, limiting current, and…

As simple and ubiquitous redox-active organic molecules, quinones participate in diverse electron transfer processes in chemistry and biological systems for energy transformation and signal transduction. We introduce here a practical exercise to study the redox potentials of benzoquinone and its two derivatives by combining the electrochemistry…

This review describes a computational chemistry exercise aimed at enhancing the understanding of upper-division undergraduates in organic chemistry and physical chemistry regarding the structures and aromaticities of cyclobutadiene and cyclooctatetraene. This exercise exposes students to chemical problems that require computational methods as a…

A computational experiment investigating common organic chemistry mechanisms has been developed and implemented in a junior/senior-level physical chemistry laboratory course at two institutions. Students investigated various reactions that proceed via S[subscript N]1, S[subscript N]2, E1, and E2 mechanisms using hybrid Density Functional Theory…

Approximate mathematical treatments are commonly taught in undergraduate chemistry, but the validity ranges of these approximations have rarely been properly defined. We present error contour plots of commonly used quadratic approximations for calculating equilibrium proton concentrations of monoprotic acids. Students and instructors can easily…

As electrochemistry continues to gain broader acceptance and use within the organic chemistry community, it is important that advanced undergraduate students are exposed to fundamental and practical knowledge of electrochemical applications for chemical synthesis. Herein, we describe the development of an undergraduate laboratory experience that…

When learning chemistry, students must learn to extract chemical information from mathematical expressions. However, chemistry students' exposure to mathematics often comes primarily from pure mathematics courses, which can lead to knowledge fragmentation and potentially hinder their ability to use mathematics in chemistry. This study examines how…

We report an educational tool for the upper level undergraduate quantum chemistry or quantum physics course that uses a symbolic approach via the PySyComp Python library. The tool covers both time-independent and time-dependent quantum chemistry, with the latter rarely considered in the foundations course due to topic complexity. We use quantized…

The fundamental principles and applications of thermodynamics and single-component phase equilibrium are used to explain and quantitatively analyze the operation and performance of the vapor-compression refrigerator (VCR). Carbon dioxide is used as the refrigerant. The four processes (or steps) that comprise the VCR refrigeration cycle are…

In the context of quantum mechanics, students are often asked to use delta functions to solve problems. Here, we investigate three typical problem-solving processes using delta functions: a delta function potential well problem, a position space delta function problem, and a momentum space delta function problem. We studied students'solutions in…

Commonly used methods to simulate the oxidation-reduction (redox) titration curves include the three-step method and the rigorous method. The simple three-step method simulates the redox titration curve with the assumption that the reaction is complete, which is widely used in undergraduate quantitative analysis courses. For the rigorous…

The Partnership for Integration of Computation into Undergraduate Physics (PICUP) was founded in the mid-2010s to assist educators with the challenges of integrating computation into physics curricula. In addition to in-person trainings and hosted educational materials, PICUP uses a Slack Workspace to continue collaboration and discussion…

In this article, we demonstrate the use of a simple pendulum to explore the concepts of kinematics and dynamics. A simple homemade pendulum and a phone-based accelerometer are used to determine, at various points in time, the acceleration of a moving train. The dynamical and kinematics data from the homemade pendulum and the accelerator can then…