MChem Chemistry

This course unit detail provides the framework for delivery in 21/22 and may be subject to change due to any additional Covid-19 impact.  

The unit provides training for employability in industry and research.

Semester 1 provides a common training ground of experiments across the broad spectrum of chemistry topics and acts as a stepping stone from first and second year laboratories. Semester 1 experiments are generally split into two parts; the first part will enable a practice of fundamental skills with the second part being open-ended and an opportunity to develop planning, creativity and critical analysis.

Semester 2 will provide time for group research projects, focussing on a key area of chemistry as chosen by the research group. Research groups will work with a member of academic staff to develop project aims and deliver against these aims.

The CHEM30620 course will develop skills in employability including communication skills, reporting to a professional standard, research skills, creativity, planning work with milestones, budgeting, risk assessment, allocating work amongst team members and working as a team to achieve shared objectives.

The unit aims to:
Enable students to (i) make critical judgments regarding experimental techniques and to select appropriate methods for a given process based on analysis of the system/compound; (ii) to report their findings to a professional standard; (iii) work as a part of a team to develop research goals, plan activities and deliver against shared objectives.

The CHEM30620 course will develop skills in employability including communication skills, reporting to a professional standard, research skills, creativity, planning work with milestones, budgeting, risk assessment, allocating work amongst team members and working as a team to achieve shared objectives.

Feedback is provided in the following ways:

(i) Formative oral feedback is provided through in-lab discussions between students and GTAs/staff members (both semesters),
(ii) Formative oral feedback is provided by group project supervisors in meetings during group project planning weeks (semester one) and during the project execution phase (semester two),
(iii) Feedback is provided on summatively-assessed executive summary reports in semester one,
(iv) Oral feedback will be provided by markers at the group poster presentation (semester two)
(v) Written comments will provide feedback on individual project reports (semester two).
 

Individual experiments and research projects will prescribe specific reading from the relevant literature which will include journal articles, textbooks and patents.

In addition, general information can be found in texts such as:

Vogel, A.I., Tatchell, A.R., Furnis, B.S., Hannaford, A.J. and Smith, P.W.G., 1989. Vogel’s textbook of practical organic chemistry. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, pp.1023-1024.

Pass, G., 2013. Practical inorganic chemistry: preparations, reactions and instrumental methods. Springer Science & Business Media.

Lewars, E., 2003. Computational chemistry. Introduction to the theory and applications of molecular and quantum mechanics, p.318.

Harris D.C., 2016. Quantitative Chemical Analysis, 9^th Ed., W.H. Freeman, pp. 667-712

Miller J.H., Miller J.C., Miller R.D., 2018. Statistics and Chemometrics for Analytical Chemistry, 7^th Ed., Pearson Education