BSc Chemistry

Development of core competency in practical chemistry, laboratory safety procedures including CRA and risk assessment and analytical/transferable skills necessary for working as a scientist.

This second year laboratory class takes place on Tuesdays (6 hours) and Wednesdays (2 hours).

Broaden, reinforce and extend core practical skills, using both the skills developed in the first year laboratories and through introduction of more advanced techniques. This includes multi-step synthesis, anhydrous and inert techniques, spectroscopic and analytical methods, computational calculation of molecular properties, rational design of experiments, independent research and safety assessment.

On successful completion of the course students should be able to:

• Connect theory and practice to find appropriate methods, to collect data and make choices about the appropriate manipulation of that data.
• Undertake independent safety assessments of experiments, and carry out practical work efficiently and professionally.
• Interprete and manipulate analytical data from multiple sources and using it to draw conclusions.
• Critically analyse outcomes, perform research and contextualise findings, and report results to a high technical standard.

16 experiments:

Carbonyl Chemistry

Infrared Spectroscopy of Gas-phase Molecules

Suzuki Coupling

Gas Chromatography

Identification of an Unknown Compound

Stability of Complexes of Cu(II) in Solution

Inorganic Reactions of Sodium Borohydride

Ferrocene: Synthesis and Reactivity

Identification of Coordination Complexes

Kinetics of Reactions of Cr(III)

Ring-Opening of an Epoxide

Glucose Pentaacetate

Huckel Theory

Epoxidation of Carvone

Structure and Reactivity in Ester Hydrolysis

Programming in Matlab

Techniques: Schlenk line, low-temperature/inert atmosphere reactions, TLC, GC, conductivity, electrochemistry, multinuclear NMR, IR, UV, magnetometry, databases, literature searching

Software: Chemdraw, MNova, Excel, Matlab, Gaussian, Python

Safety Assessments

Attendance at lab sessions is compulsory. Students are

expected to attend all lab sessions.

There is a minimum pass mark of 40% for the practical unit,

and this cannot be compensated or retaken for the second

year assessment.

Laboratory experiments

Breakdown of lab assessment:

i) Before the lab, via pre-reading of the lab

manual and online lab tests, which test your

preparedness in terms of knowledge and risk

awareness.

ii) In the lab, summative assessment (face-to-

face) through a combination of lab book, good

lab practice, experimental technique/data

obtained, and critical analysis of results,

through oral vivas.

iii) After the lab, through data analysis and report

writing.