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…

Photocatalytic water splitting by semiconductor photocatalysts has attracted considerable attention in the past few decades. In this experiment, nanosized titanium dioxide (nano-TiO[subscript 2]) particles are used to photocatalytically split water, which is then monitored by an oxygen sensor. Sacrificial reagents such as organics (EDTA) and metal…

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…

This laboratory experiment, using proton NMR spectroscopy to determine the dissociation constant for heterocyclic bases, has been modified from a previously described experiment. A solution of a substituted pyridine is prepared using deuterium oxide (D[subscript 2]O) as the solvent. The pH of the solution is adjusted and proton NMR spectra are…

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…

An alternative analytical method for measuring the kinetic parameters of the enzymes invertase and lactase is described. Invertase hydrolyzes sucrose to glucose and fructose and lactase hydrolyzes lactose to glucose and galactose. In most enzyme kinetics studies, photometric methods or test strips are used to quantify the derivates of the…

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…

The biharmonic oscillator and the asymmetric linear well are two confining power-law-type potentials for which complete bound-state solutions are possible in both classical and quantum mechanics. We examine these problems in detail, beginning with studies of their trajectories in position and momentum space, evaluation of the classical probability…

General chemistry students often have difficulty writing balanced equations and performing stoichiometry calculations for precipitation reactions, in part because of difficulty understanding the symbolic notation used to represent chemical reactions. We have developed a problem-based experiment to improve student learning of these concepts, and…

Traditionally, cytotechnology (CT) students have been trained by using light microscopy (LM) and glass slides. However, this method of training has some drawbacks. Several other educational programs with similar issues have incorporated virtual microscopy (VM) in their curricula. In VM, the specimens on glass slides are converted into virtual…

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…

Near-peer teaching is an educational format which utilizes tutors who are more advanced in a curriculum's content to supervise students' activities and to act as instructors in laboratory settings. This format is often used in anatomy laboratory courses. The goal of the present study is to describe the design and implementation of near-peer…

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…

We describe the development of a mini-library of human DNA fragments for use in an enquiry-based learning (EBL) undergraduate practical incorporating "wet-lab" and bioinformatics tasks. In spite of the widespread emergence of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), the cloning and analysis of DNA fragments in "Escherichia coli"…

Fictional materials are commonly used in the classroom to teach course content. Both laboratory experiments and classroom demonstrations illustrate the benefits of using fiction to help students learn accurate information about the world. However, fictional sources often contain factually inaccurate content, making them a potent vehicle for…