A fast and generally applicable alternative solution to the problem of determining the useful shelf life of medicinal solutions is described. It illustrates the power and convenience of the combination of numerical simulation and nonlinear least squares with a practical pharmaceutical application of chemical kinetics and thermodynamics, validated…

A method is presented for the determination of ["alpha"]- and ["beta"]-acids (humulones and lupulones) in a hops sample using a multicomponent UV spectroscopic analysis of a methanolic hop extract. When compared with standard methods, this lab can be considered "greener" because it uses smaller volumes of safer solvents (methanol instead of…

A new solvent-free microwave experiment to synthesize the ionic liquid 1-hexadecyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide (HDMIm-Br) in high yield is presented. The structure is confirmed by IR and [superscript 1]H NMR spectra. HDMIm-Br is then used to prepare an organic-inorganic mesoporous material MCM-41. The microscopic arrangements of mesoporous…

The concept of "Education for Sustainable Development", ESD, has been introduced in a period where chemistry education is undergoing a major change, both in emphasis and methods of teaching. Studying an everyday problem, with an important socio-economic impact in the laboratory is a part of this approach. Presently, the students in many…

In this paper we discuss a pedagogical approach aimed at pointing out the role played by the Boltzmann factor in describing phenomena usually perceived as regulated by different mechanisms of functioning. Experimental results regarding some aspects of a chemical reaction and of the viscous flow of some liquids are analysed and described in terms…

Lewis structures are a simplified two dimensional "cartoon" of molecular structure that allow a knowledgeable user to predict the types of properties a particular substance may exhibit. However, prior research shows that many students fail to recognize these structure-property connections and are unable to decode the information…

Science teachers can find lesson ideas almost anywhere. For example, during a recent visit to a local dollar store, the author stumbled upon a flower vase filled with water pearls, also known as water beads and jelly beans. She bought several of the bags (search the web to find numerous online sources), and soon began experimenting. Water pearls…

An upper-level undergraduate project is described in which students perform high-level ab initio computational scans of the potential energy curves for Ne[subscript 2] and Ar[subscript 2] and obtain the respective Lennard-Jones (LJ) potential parameters [sigma] and [epsilon] for the dimers. Using this information, along with the summation of…

The late-Victorian era provided aficionados of detective fiction with an abundance of short stories belonging to this literary genre. Many of these works contained some aspect of chemistry, either in the execution of a crime or in the identification of the perpetrator. In the example discussed in this article, the gas-phase reaction of hydrogen…

A group activity for use in the classroom or recitation section of an organic chemistry course is described. This activity, a board game using trivia and concepts from the course material, can be used periodically throughout the semester to introduce or reinforce content knowledge. Alternate versions can be easily constructed for other courses.…

Evaporation and boiling are both terms applied to the change of a liquid to the vapour/gaseous state. This article argues that it is the formation of bubbles of vapour within the liquid that most clearly differentiates boiling from evaporation although only a minority of chemistry textbooks seems to mention bubble formation in this context. The…

A discovery-based method is described for incorporating the concepts of IR and Raman spectroscopy into the general chemistry curriculum. Students use three sets of springs to model the properties of single, double, and triple covalent bonds. Then, Gaussian 03W molecular modeling software is used to illustrate the relationship between bond…

In this report, we adapt and extend a methodology for documenting the collective production of meaning in a classroom community. A cornerstone of the methodological approach that we develop is a close examination of classroom discourse. Our efforts to analyze the collective production of meaning by examining classroom interaction are compatible…

In this study, the views of Serbian chemistry teachers (N = 334) on the ways in which contemporary chemistry curricula stimulate the creativity of students were surveyed. The majority of the teachers have a positive attitude towards promoting creativity through teaching chemistry. Most of them also stated that their teaching practice contained…

This paper describes the utility of using simulated, rather than real, student solutions to problems within a peer-assessment setting and whether this approach can be used as a means of improving performance in chemical calculations. The study involved a small cohort of students, of two levels, who carried out a simulated peer-assessment as a…