CHM3915 Physical Chemistry lab

Link to ACS journals. You can use this link to get to the literature data paper for the Binary Phase Diagram experiment. Find the relevant journal and then select the appropriate Decade, Volume and Issue number (based on the page number given). You will be able to download a PDF version of the reference.

Class meeting times and groups - Each week you need to attend the Monday 3pm lecture and one of the lab sessions indicated in the table below (we'll decide upon groups during the first class meeting).

Schedule (includes deadlines):

• Monday January 7th, room 4180, Initial meeting: syllabus, schedule, group assignments.
• Don't forget that you can always bring a rough draft of your report for us to look through if you wish (preferably a day or two ahead of the deadline to allow for correcting problems). We will be happy to check your basic format and the correctness of the calculations to make sure you're on the right track.
• Please take care when writing your Introduction in your lab report to not just recopy (changing slightly) the material from the handout. This is considered plagiarism.

Schedule & Course information

• Dr. B.A. Lawrence's Spring 2008 timetable - timetable and office hours
• Dr. S.A. Peebles' Spring 2008 timetable - timetable and office hours
• CHM3915 Syllabus - goals and structure of the course, including a brief summary of the required report format.
• CHM3915 list of experiments - the schedule of experiments for this semester, including due dates for lab reports.
• CHM3915 Report Format - details on the format you need to follow for Physical Chemistry lab reports.
• A brief introduction to Excel - some basic help in using the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet application (includes some practice exercises).
• Additional text book for the course - "Physical Chemistry" by Laidler, Meiser and Sanctuary has been added as a textbook for this course. If you don't have a copy of this text from other classes then you need to pick one up at TRS. This is a useful reference text for the theory behind the experiments this semester and some of the experimental handouts will include a background reading reference from this book.
• List of common Excel formulae (also contains a brief introduction to the Equation Editor in Word)
• Plagiarism - details on what is considered as cheating in this class. Note that any incidences of cheating will be reported to the Office of Judicial Affairs and a grade of F will be given.
• Short form reports: You can write a short form report is you maintain a B average over 4 consecutive reports. This means that as long as the average of your last 4 reports is 78% or higher you are eligible to write the short form. Note: if you have late penalties on any of these labs this is NOT included in the calculation of the average, it is only the original grade (before late penalties are subtracted) that will be averaged. If the average of your last 4 reports drops back below 78% then you will no longer be eligible for short form, so don't ease off on the quality of writing!

• Pre-lab assignment #1 (Thermcouple calibration)

Useful course links
Links to additional handouts or external links to sites of interest.

• ACS journals home page - provides access to all ACS journals on-line, including J. Am. Chem. Soc., J. Phys. Chem. (1896 - 1996) and J. Phys. Chem. A (1996 onwards)
• Bomb calorimetry apparatus - additional information on the apparatus and procedure for the bomb calorimetry lab.
• Bomb calorimetry data (Excel files)
• Cottrell apparatus used in the Binary Phase Diagram experiment.
• Formic acid dimer - PowerPoint file
• Keto-enol report notes - comments on common problems on reports (includes general information)
• Instructions on reading the barometer in the PChem lab (this is used in the Binary Phase Diagram experiment).
• The NIST Chemistry WebBook - a useful source of data for comparison with your experimental results
• NIST Physics lab - Lots of links to useful information, including a link to Physical Reference Data, which includes a tabulation of physical constants.
• Propagation of uncertainty - an example illustrating how to propagate an uncertainty in an equation with several uncertain variables.
• Speed of sound lab links:
-Variation of the speed of sound in an ideal gas with temperature. Note that the pressure has little effect on the speed of sound in real gases. In an ideal gas, the pressure and density effects cancel (see the relevant equations in your text book on page 113) and so the speed of sound is totally independent of pressure.
-General concepts of sound propagation
-Distinction between transverse and longitudinal waves (sound waves are longitudinal waves)

• Second order regression output - annotated output from a second order regression analysis with Excel. This is particularly useful for the thermocouple experiment.
• Statistical analysis notes - additional notes on uncertainty calculations and statistics (contains additional links to tables of t-test values and expressions for propagation of uncertainty). List of common Excel formulae (also contains a brief introduction to the Equation Editor in Word )
• Thermocouple lab report guidelines - additional guidelines and hints for the first lab report.
• Thermogram analysis - Copy of the thermogram analysis handout for the bomb calorimetry lab. Includes annotated output from the analysis program.

- You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to read the PDF files on this site. Click on the button to the left to download this software for free.