The inhibition of porcine pancreatic lipase by the drug orlistat was studied through a series of activities that combine experimental and computational procedures. The enzymatic activity of the lipase was determined by measuring enzyme kinetics and calculating parameters such as K[subscript m] and V[subscript max] from experimental data. Assays of…

Enzyme kinetics is an essential part of biochemistry programs, which have been gaining importance in recent years for their applications in biotechnology and biomedicine. The teaching and learning of these issues has been traditionally hampered by difficulties that stem mainly from the dynamic and mathematical nature of the topic and the…

A classical nonlinear system, the "Brusselator", was used to illustrate the modeling and simulation of oscillating chemical systems using stability analysis techniques with modern software tools such as Comsol Multiphysics, Matlab, and Excel. A systematic approach is proposed in order to establish a regime of parametric conditions that…

This experiment and analysis offer an effective experience in greenhouse gas reduction. Ammoniated water is flowed counter-current to a simulated flue gas of air and CO2 in a packed column. The gaseous CO2 concentrations are measured with an on-line, non- dispersive, infrared analyzer. Column operating parameters include total gas flux, dissolved…

In this exercise, an actual chemical reaction, oxidation of iron in air, is studied along with a related analogue simulation of that reaction. The rusting of steel wool is carried out as a class effort. The parallel simulation is performed by students working in small groups. The analogue for the reacting gas is a countable set of discrete marble…

SCILAB is a lesser-known program (than MATLAB) for numeric simulations and has the advantage of being free software. A challenging software-based activity to analyze the most common linear reversible inhibition types with SCILAB is described. Students establish typical values for the concentration of enzyme, substrate, and inhibitor to simulate…

This experiment and analysis offer an economic yet challenging semi-batch reactor experience. Household bleach is pumped at a controlled rate into a batch reactor containing pharmaceutical hydrogen peroxide solution. Batch temperature, product molecular oxygen, and the overall change in solution conductivity are metered. The reactor simulation…

A classroom exercise is described to introduce enzyme kinetics in an undergraduate biochemistry or chemistry course. The exercise is a simulation in which a student acts as an enzyme that "catalyzes" the unscrewing of a nut from a bolt. With other students assisting, the student enzyme carries out reactions with bolt-nut substrates under different…

An exercise is presented in which the kinetics of the irreversible "reaction" of pennies in the heads-up state to pennies in the tails-up state is simulated by a hands-on, Monte Carlo approach. In addition, the exercise incorporates a second simulation in which the irreversible "reaction" of dice with a red face uppermost to a blue face uppermost…

We describe a computer tutorial that introduces the concept of the steady state in enzyme kinetics. The tutorial allows students to produce graphs of the concentrations of free enzyme, enzyme-substrate complex, and product versus time in order to learn about the approach to steady state. By using a range of substrate concentrations and rate…

Proposes an approach to chemical kinetics and mechanism using statistical games, illustrating its use in monomolecular, catalytic, autocatalytic, consecutive, and equilibrium reactions. Major features of the games are also outlined and discussed. (JN)

Newton's laws can be illustrated by having physics students participate in various activities while on roller skates. Several examples of such activities (including photographs) are provided. (JN)

Contains short descriptions of computer programs or hardware that simulate laboratory instruments or results of kinetics experiments, including ones that include experiment error, numerical simulation, first-order kinetic mechanisms, a game for decisionmaking, and simulated mass spectrophotometers. (CS)

In this paper we develop materials to address student interest in the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004. We discuss the physical characteristics of tsunamis and some of the specific data regarding the 2004 event. Finally, we create an easy-to-make tsunami tank to run simulations in the classroom. The simulations exhibit three dramatic…

Discusses simulation program to aid in the design of enzyme kinetic experimentation (includes sample runs). Concentration versus time profiles of any subset or all nine states of reactions can be displayed with/without simulated instrumental noise, allowing the user to estimate the practicality of any proposed experiment given known instrument…