The general aims of the module are:
• To give the student practical experience and understanding of advanced practical techniques in three areas from: Organic, Inorganic, Physical and Computational Chemistry.
• To develop appropriate techniques for each type of experiment
• To show the use of suitable characterisation and numerical techniques
• To make valid deductions from acquired data
• To familiarise the student with the preparation of written reports
• To introduce structured programming in PYTHON (if computational option chosen)
• To establish a close link with aspects of the lecture material covered in the Yr2 and Yr3 course

(LO1) By the end of this module, students should be able to demonstrate advanced practical skills in three of the following areas: organic, inorganic, physical and computational chemistry using spectroscopic techniques and chemical methods

(LO2) By the end of this module, students should be able to document advanced practical techniques by producing comprehensible and reasoned written reports

(LO3) By the end of this module, students should be able to deduce experimental outcomes from acquired data needed for understanding advanced practical and chemical knowledge

(LO4) By the end of this module, students should be able evaluate experimental work in terms of shortcomings, experimental errors and weaknesses and make recommendations for improvements

(LO5) By the end of this module, students should be able to evidence development of time management skills through coordination of synthetic and analytical components and project management and allowing students to develop methods that suit them.

(LO6) By the end of this module, students should be able to develop strategies for structured programming and user-friendly, reusable code in PYTHON and use this to solve numerically physical chemistry models (if the Computational option is chosen)

(S1) organisational skills

(S2) problem-solving skills

(S3) teamwork

Students choose three subjects (which must include Physical Chemistry) and spend three weeks in each area.

Organic and/or Inorganic Chemistry. Students carry out three synthetic experiments and are required to produce a written laboratory report for each experiment, supplying the compounds they have made, produce full analytical and spectroscopic data and demonstrate mechanistic details of the chemistry involved. Each experiment is accompanied by a series of questions to which the student has to submit answers in their written report.

Physical Chemistry. Students carry out a project within a team of ca. 4 students. Each project has an overall goal and students are directed to specific literature sources on the Reading list for one example of how to reach the goal. Teams are free to choose detailed experimental approaches with regular feedback from demonstrators on experiments and results. At the end, one joint laboratory report is required to be submitted by the team aft er peer review and demonstrator feedback.

Computational Chemistry. After the introduction to PYTHON, students carry out three computer-based experiments involving writing code to solve particular problems. Students submit their codes along with written reports with interpretation of the numerical results. The codes should include a user manual, sufficient comments to allow a third person to understand the structure of the program, and a BASH command history.

This module consists of THREE blocks of 4 x 2 day practical sessions in Organic, Inorganic, Physical or Computational Chemistry.
Students choose a combination that includes Physical Chemistry and two of the other three areas of Chemistry.

Organic Chemistry. Students carry out three organic experiments that give them experience of both flash chromatography and recrystallisation as purification techniques. The reaction products are analysed by NMR, IR, and melting points.

Inorganic Chemistry. Students carry out three inorganic experiments in which they prepare and analyse compounds from the branches of organometallic and solid state chemistry. The background to these topics is taught in lecture modules CHEM214 and CHEM313.

Physical Chemistry. Students carry out a physical chemistry project in teams using a variety of spectroscopy- or electrochemistry-based techniques. The project serves as an introduction to subjects covered in semester 2 Physical Chemistry lectures and allows students to develop more sophisticated skills in data acquisition, analysis and fitting.

Computational Chemistry: Following hands-on workshops introducing basic concepts and elements of PYTHON programming under a LINUX operating system, students carry out three computer-based experiments of Computational Chemistry based on their own developed code. These experiments introduce the students to contemporary best practice in numerical solution of core Computational Chemistry problems and Physical Chemistry models covered in the Physical Chemistry lectures of Yr 2, and serve as an introduction to subjects covered in semester 2 Physical Chemistry lectures. In order to make the most of this strand, students who have not scored at least 60% at the first attempt in the CHEM260 (PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY II) and CHEM280 (KEY SKILLS FOR CHEMISTS 2) modules in Yr 2 are advised against selecting this option.