The aims of the module are:

• To give the student practical experience and understanding of advanced practical techniques for Organic, Inorganic, Physical Chemistry and Theoretical and Computational Ch emistry.
• 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 establish a close link with aspects of the lecture material covered in the Yr2 and Yr3 course

Carry out advanced practical techniques in the three of the areas of Organic, Organometallic, Physical Chemistry and Theoretical and Computational Chemistry

Give a reasoned written exposition of experimental or computational work and achievements

Make valid deductions from acquired data

Give comprehensible written accounts of experimental work

Demonstrate an understanding of shortcomings, experimental errors or weaknesses in data

Further develop their time management skills via coordination of the synthetic and analytical components of their experiments

Show that they understand the wider social or technological relevance of their work

Develop strategies for structured programming in PYTHON if theoretical and computational pathway chosen

Develop user-friendly, re-usable code in PYTHON to solve numerically Physical Chemistry models if theoretical and computational pathway chosen

Laboratory Work - Laboratory Work

Students carry out organic, inorganic and physical labs. As an alternative, they can choose to opt out of either organic or inotrganic labs and take the computational component instead.

Organic:

Students carry out three organic experiments that are based on catalytic transformations (enzyme-catalysed resolution, metal-cataly sed reactions) and give them experience of both flash chromatography and recrystallisation as purification techniques.The reaction products are analysed byNMR, IR, optical rotations and melting points. The students are required to produce a written report for each experiment supplying the compounds they have made, full spectroscopic data and mechanistic details of the chemistry involved. Each practical is accompanied by a series of questions to which the student has to submit answers in their written report.

Inorganic: 

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. A written laboratory report is required for each experiment, which includes synthetic methods and the interpretation of analytical and spectroscopic results. In addition, each experiment includes several questions, the answers to which are submitted for marking as part of the written report.

Physical:

Students carry out three physical chemistry experiments in the areas of spectroscopy, electrochemistry and surface science. The experiments serve as an introduction to subjects covered in semester 2 Physical Chemistry lectures and allow students to develop more sophisticated skills in data acquisition, analysis and fitting. A written laboratory report is required for each experiment and this includes both the description of experimental work and interpretation of the results. In addition, each experiment includes several questions, the answers to which are submitted for marking as part of the written report.

Theory:

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 Theoretical and 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. For each experiment, students have to submit a written report with interpretation of the numerical results and insights of the experiment, the PYTHON code used to generate their results, user manual for their program, and BASH command history. 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.

Organic, Inorganic and Physical Chemistry textbooks

For theory strand open-access documentation and tutorials are available at: https://www.python.org/doc