For chemistry resources, please visit the resources page

Class notes from AS non-exam class

1. 13 Sep – Picket-fence method to convert from one unit to another
2. 14 Sep – Hydrocarbons, balancing equations by inspection
3. 20 Sep – Balancing equation by algebraic method I
4. 21 Sep – Balancing equation by algebraic method II, Enthalpy
5. 27 Sep – pH calculations, how to calculate enthalpy of combustion of a fuel
6. 28 Sep – Calculating the energy value of a fuel (candle wax)
7. 04 Oct –  Enthalpy continued, find the energy value of methanol (end of chapter problem)
8. 05 Oct – Errors and energy calculations. Chem datasheet can be downloaded as PDF
9. 11 Oct – Converting Cal to Joule in Microsoft Excel. Namebox, number formatting of a value in a cell. See video on student on server.  Resources: Wordle, Manyeyes, Wolframalpha 
10. 12 Oct – Converting Calories to KiloWattHours using excel. Download xlsx file
11. 18 Oct – Crude oil distillation, discussion on fuel used in Germany and Brazil. What is the water footprint of growing sugar cane vs rapeseed? Searching scientific articles not through Google. This topic will be revisited.
12. 19 Oct – Convert Cal/g to kWh/g using Microsoft Excel and IF, MAX, MIN function in Microsoft Excel. xlsx file can be downloaded here.
13. 1 Nov – Enthalpy of formation, combustion, Hess’ law; Chemical Ideas 4.1, end of chapter question 4, 11.
14. 2 Nov – Calculating the energy value of a candle. 5 kcal/g; determining the error in calculating the density of water using various volume measurement apparatus (cylinder, pipette). Xlsx file showing the various measurements.
15. 8 Nov – Hess’ law continued.
16. 9 Nov – Calculating the enthalpy of hydration of CuSO4 (chemical ideas, p62, problem 11); MIT opencourseware, EDX, iTunesU, PNAS.
17. 15 Nov – Enthalpy of reaction using bond enthalpy.
18. 23 Nov – Distillation of Hydrocarbons, nomenclature, isomers; find out all possible isomers of C7H16 and C4H10O.
19. 17 Jan – Revise isomers, dot and cross diagrams of hydrocarbons
20. 31 Jan – Empirical formula
21. 1 Feb – Distillation of H2O and alcohol mixture
22. 7 Feb: Distillation, Raoult’s law
23. 8 Feb – Vapor pressure concentration diagram, boiling point – Vapor pressure diagram. Next week, students would bring a plot of the partial pressure vs composition of Benzene, Phenyl chloride mixture.
24. 14  Feb – Plot of vapour pressures and mole fraction in Excel. Effect of the ratio of the vapour pressure of A and vapour pressure of B on the plot of y_A vs x_A
25. 15 Feb – Relation between mole fraction of component A in vapour phase and mole fraction of A in liquid phase
26. 28 Feb Reading on Knocking from the Storylines and an article from ‘The Economist‘ and to find out how a petrol and a diesel engine works.
27. 9 Mar Plot of boiling point of alkanes
28. 14 Mar – more on Octane number; HW- cetane number, cracking, which fuel does race cars use?
29. 21 Mar – Types of cracking, formula1 fuel
30. 22 Mar – Oxidation of alcohols microscale experiment.
31. 18, 19, 25 Apr– Climate change, alternative fuels (Chemistry in the stratosphere and upper atmosphere, Effects of water and nitrogen dioxide on the stratospheric ozone shield, The Environmental Chemistry of Trace Atmospheric Gases, CO2 Absorption of IR Radiated by the Earth, Analysis of the Upper Atmosphere, The composition of the atmosphere (subscription required for all).  Video references: TED – James Hansen, Bristol University – Paul Valdes, University of California – Sherwood Rowland.
    
    
32. 26 Apr – Alexandre came to the class and we had a discussion about ‘space’. Henrique extracted fragrance from Magnolia petals using distillation. Oliver joined the class.
33. 2,3,9, 10 May – Henrique and Felix will make a presentation on Climate Change in  weeks time.

Class notes from chemistry tutorial

1. 15 Sep – Elements, Mixtures, Ions, Isotopes, Mass number and atomic number
2. 22 Sep – Atomic weight, mole, concentration, dilution, abundances
3. 29 Sep – Calculations involving moles and volume
4. 6 Oct – Types of bonds, dot & cross formula
5. 13 Oct – Empirical formula and molecular formula, introduction to reacting masses
6. 27 Oct – Reacting masses continued
7. 3 Nov – Combustion of Octane – oxygen consumed and CO2 produced in burning 50 Kg of Octane
8. 10 Nov – revision of materials covered so far; Kinetic theory of gases. Xlsx file containing plot of xy=c (equivalent to PV=constant for ideal gases).
9. 17 Nov – Boyle’s law and Charles law combined; Universal gas constant R, relation between density and molar masses of gases.
10. 24 Nov – Kinetic theory of gases continued; Dalton’s law; states of matter.
11. 19 Jan – Homework problems.
12. 9 Feb – revision of work done so far.
13. 2 Mar – Unit processes in a chemistry laboratory (Filtration, Distillation, Crystallisation, Sedimentation and Extraction.
14. 9 Mar – Electronic arrangement and spectra
15. 16 Mar – Spectra continued; chemical reactions
16. Apr – classes stopped

Class notes from chemistry A2

1. 14 Sep – Salicylic acid, oxidation of alcohols, properties of phenol
2. 17 Sep – Esters, Reaction Mechanism, Oxidation of phenolic compounds
3. 20 Sep – Combined IR & Mass spectra, intro to NMR
4. 22 Sep – Intro to NMR Organic Chemistry by John McMurry. See NMR folder on student on server
5. 24 Sep – Esters, ester hydrolysis
6. 27 Sep – Acids and Bases, Conjugate acid/base pair
7. 28 Sep – Thin Layer chromatography, MIT digital lab techniques
8. 01 Oct – Drug discovery, clinical trials, end of module test
9. 04 Oct – Materials revolution, amides, amines, properties of amines
10. 05 Oct – Amides, acid and base hydrolysis
11. 8 Oct – Nylon and naming nylons, past paper January 2012, question related to E300 and Bronsted acid and carboxylic functional group, repeat unit of nylon
12. 11 Oct – Glass transition temperature, Periodic videos (Chocolate and roses), Molecular cooking, Heston Blumenthal and articles from Journal of Chemical Education (Abstract1, Abstract 2)
13. 12 Oct – Proteins and DNA
14. 15 Oct – Amino acids, Zwitter ion, dimerisation example (past paper chemistry A, Valine, Proline dimer), effect of pH on amino acids; Chemguide is a good web resource for A level students.
15. 18 Oct – Aminoacids isomerism, chirality, polypeptide hydrolysis, recrystallisation of an impure solid.
16. 19 Oct – End of chapter questions from Optical Isomerism. Is C-C quadruple bond possible (though we did not understand the entire article, some thing about the wave mechanics postulates that it is not possible), why does activated charcoal selectively adsorb colours (we did not come up with an answer), Introduction to Nature (particularly the ‘News and Views’ section)  and Science magazine (Perspectives section), Pubmed (for biochemical research, Sciencedirect (for general research articles).
17. 29 Oct – Chemical Kinetics Introduction. Plot of an exponential function can be downloaded as xlsx file.
18. 1 Nov – Chemical Kinetics, rate law, end of chapter question 3 from Chemical Ideas 3; problem from Chemical Reaction Engineering by Octave Levenspiel (rate of combustion of H2 and O2 given the formation of production of water vapour in Kg/s); role of pH in enzyme catalysis using glucose strips used for Urinalysis. see student on server for the problem from Levenspiel book
19. 2 Nov – Chemical kinetics continued; calculating reaction rate from concentration-time plot; finding  the order of a reaction using half lives. Chemical Ideas 10.3 problem 4. Xlsx file.
20. 5 Nov – Clock reaction between Thiosulphate and HCl. related pages: Connexions,   Chemical Education Wisconsin, Chem Nebraska. Xlsx file
21. 8 Nov – kinetics continued
22. 12 Nov – Reaction mechanism and order of a reaction
23. 15 Nov – How much copper is there in Brass. Not sure if the wet hygroscopic Copper Nitrate.3H2O used was right, we found out qualitatively that the color produced when Brass was reacted with HNO3 matched the well C6 in the experiment (this well had 30 drops of Copper nitrate and 10 drops of water) and that the copper content was around 80% which is 20% higher. Surprisingly when we measured the absorbance at the blue wavelength using the Philip Harris Digital Calorimeter, we got higher absorbance for the sample compared to the standard, which was rather strange.
24. 16 Nov – Redox potential; videos on potential difference, Voltaic Cell; Chemguide offers good explanation for redox potential.
25. 19 Nov – Electrochemical cells continued. Video on convention, Galvanic cells;
26. 23 Nov – Feasibility of eletrochemical reactions.
27. 26 Nov: d Block elements, transition metals
28. 17 Jan – Chemical Equilibrium, equilibrium law
29. 18 Jan – Agriculture and Industry storyline: Soil fertility, Nitrogen Fixation
30. 21 Jan – Esterification reaction equilibrium
31. 7 Feb – Colors and Calorimetry
32. 11 Feb – Colurs continued
33. 14 Feb Synthesis of Nitro Methy Benzoate
34. 15 Feb Oils and Fats
35. 28 Feb – Arenes, Stability of benzene and reactions of benzene
36. 1 Mar – Reactions of benzene continued
37. 7 Mar – Diazotisation, effect of substituents on electrophilic substitution reactions, nucleophilic substitution reactions
38. 8 Mar – Enthalpies of hydration & solution
39. 11 Mar – Acids and Bases
40. 14 Mar – pH of a weak acid, buffer calculations examples; effect of pH on buffers example; iPad app;
41. 15 Mar – Buffer calculations continued;
42. 22 Mar – NMR
43. 25 Apr – Revision what’s in a medicine and the materials revolution. revision notes.
44. 26 Apr – Revision continued. Students encountered some difficulties in identifying the monomers of a polymer
45. 29 Apr, 2,3, May – Material revolution, thread of life questions.
46. 6,9,10,11 May – Personal investigation
47. 13,16,17 May- final revision of F334.
48. 20 May Mock exam F334
49. 24, 25, 27 – Mock exams; start F335

For more information on Personal investigation ideas, past papers and revision, please visit the resources page.

Class notes from chemistry Pre-AS

1. 15 Sep –  Physical and chemical change, balancing equations
2. 22 Sep – Balancing equations continued, picket-fence method
3. 29 Sep – Picket Fence method continued…
4. 6 Oct – Moles, convert one unit to another
5. 13 Oct – Moles, number of atoms, mass to moles
6. 27 Oct – qualitative determination of acid/base neutralisation
7. 3 Nov – Empirical formula – students to teach the next class
8. 10 Nov – Empirical formula continued; where can empirical formula be used; student to teach conversion of moles to grams and vice versa.
9. 17 Nov – Conversion of grams to moles (lesson taught by KS); Next week SS will teach the class on a simple way to calculate Avagadro’s number; We did calculations involving reacting masses; If 100 g of C was burnt, how much CO2 will be produced?
10. 24 Nov – Understanding the magnitude of Avagadro’s number if every inhabitant of the US were counting 1 molecule a second; Can ‘Breaking Bad’ TV series be used to teach chemistry? Home work problems from Chemical Ideas Page 7 & 9.

classes stopped after 1st term.

Maths for Sciences

1. 8 Oct – factorisation (split middle term of quadratics, group and factorise, generic rectangle factoring)
2. 15 Oct – Balancing equations by algebraic method, solving linear equations
3. 29 Oct – Bearing and distances (trigonometry)
4. 5 Nov – Introduction to Logarithms in the context of chemical kinetics
5. 12 Nov – Logarithm continued. xlsx file.
6. 19 Nov – Systems of linear equations
7. 4 Mar – How to calculate slope of a curve at different points

We meet up when the student needs to discuss a topic in maths.

Chem Tutorial 2

1. 18 Jan  – Intro to atomic structure
2. 1 Feb Intro to topics n CK 12 book; review of atomic structure.
3. 8 Feb – structure of electrons. Next week, protons
4. 15 Feb – Protons; next class neutrons and chemical equations. Link to video
5.  1 Mar – Neutrons and chemical equations. Next class to continue with chemical equations.
6. 9 Mar – chemical equations contd. Next class – conservation of energy and mass
7. 15 Mar – Law of conservation of mass
8. 22 Mar – Law of conservation of energy . Next class – Decomposition reactions
9. 18 Apr – pipetting techniques
10. 26 Apr – An Inquiry-Based Density Laboratory for Teaching Experimental Error. What is the volume of 1 Kg of water given that density of water is 1g/ml.
11. 3 May -Ratio, use of Picket fence method.
12. 10 May – units and conversion continued
13. 17 May – Introduction to moles
14. 24 May – moles continued