Ultrafast laser pump-probe spectroscopy is an important and growing field of physical chemistry that allows the measurement of chemical dynamics on their natural time scales, but undergraduate laboratory courses lack examples of such spectroscopy and the interpretation of the dynamics that occur. Here we develop and implement an ultrafast…

Electrochemical and spectroelectrochemical techniques are very important for characterizing energy materials. In the search for new sources of renewable energy, water splitting for hydrogen production and CO[subscript 2] reduction is attracting significant attention. These applications require efficient and durable catalysts and a detailed…

The Beer-Lambert law is a fundamental relationship in chemistry that helps connect macroscopic experimental observations (i.e., the amount of light exiting a solution sample) to a symbolic model composed of system-level parameters (e.g., concentration values). Despite the wide use of the Beer-Lambert law in the undergraduate chemistry curriculum…

Is the reductionist approach to teaching chemical principles in the laboratory adequate for students to make effective evaluations? In this work, using the example of sunscreens, students first assessed the analytical chemistry parameters of the active ingredients, later comparing and contrasting them with organic chemistry information for…

The methodology and mathematical treatment of several classic multivariate methods for the analysis of spectroscopic data is demonstrated in a straightforward way that can be used as a basis for teaching an undergraduate introductory course on chemometric analysis. The multivariate techniques of classical least-squares (CLS), principal component…

Stars are point-source emitters that are the closest to the definition of a blackbody in comparison to all other similar sources of radiation found in nature. Existing libraries on stellar spectra are thus a valuable resource that can be used to introduce the laws of thermal radiation in a classroom setting. In this article we briefly describe…

Computational approaches toward simulating chemical systems and evaluating experimental data has gathered great momentum in recent years. The onset of more powerful computers and advanced software has been instrumental to this end. This manuscript presents a hands-on activity which trains students in basic coding skills within the Matlab…

The use of [superscript 1]H NMR spectroscopy to analyze the number-average molecular weight of a methoxy poly(ethylene glycol) (MPEG) and an acetate derivative of this MPEG is described. These analyses illustrate NMR principles associated with the chemical shift differences of protons in different environments, NMR integration, and the effect of…

Low cost, open-source analytical instrumentation has the potential to increase educational outcomes for students and enable large-scale citizen science projects. Many of these instruments rely on smartphones to collect the data, mainly because they can effectively leverage a dramatic price-to-performance ratio of the optical sensors. However,…

A guided inquiry-based experiment exploring the regioselectivity of the hydration of phenylacetylene is described. The experiment uses an acidic gold(III) catalyst in a benign methanol/water solvent system to introduce students to alkyne chemistry and key principles of green chemistry. The experiment can be easily completed in approximately 2 h,…

In an effort to repurpose expired guaifenesin tablets, experiments devised for practical instruction are reported for the preparation and isolation of the guaifenesin acetonide using a microscale kit. The laboratory experiment successfully utilizes a waste chemical in lieu of a fine chemical to illustrate the principles behind protecting groups in…

Exothermic reactions can present safety hazards and there is a recognized need for reaction safety education at the undergraduate level. We present an experiment that illustrates the pitfall of direct scale-up of an exothermic reaction that can lead to thermal runaway. The iodide-catalyzed hydrogen peroxide decomposition reaction yields…

This paper reports an undergraduate laboratory experiment to measure heterogeneous liquid/gas reaction kinetics (ozone-oleic acid and ozone-phenothrin) using a flow reactor coupled to an attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectrometer. The experiment is specially designed for an upper-level undergraduate Physical…

Chemical engineering is mostly taught using traditional classroom teaching and laboratory experiments when possible. Being a wide discipline encompassing topics such as analytical chemistry, process design, and microbiology, it may be argued that brewing of beer has many relations to chemical engineering topic-wise. This work illustrates how…

Almost all commercial quadrupole ICP-MS instruments use collision/reaction cells to either attenuate spectral interferences or shift the analyte of interest to an interference-free "m/z" (e.g., by O addition). A laboratory practical was developed to introduce the students to the basic operating principles of ICP-MS using a hands-on…