instrumental techniques
Spring 1999 Course Guide F. Senese

general information
What is this course about?
What are the objectives of this course?
Are there any prerequisites for this course?
Who is the instructor?
When are office hours?
How do I use the HyperNews board for this course?
When do we meet for lectures and labs?
What course materials do I have to buy?

grading & course policies
What if I miss a lecture, lab or test?
How are grades calculated?
Does attendance count towards my final grade?
What's going to be on the test?
Can I turn assignments in late?
Can I get a CS or NC grade in this course?

laboratory policies
What should I bring to lab?
What notebooks are suitable for laboratory?
What can I do to finish labs on time?
What should be in a lab report?
Can I work with my lab partner on reports?
How are lab reports graded?
How can I submit lab reports from the net?
What if I miss a lab?


news
Bulletin board, announcements & schedule changes. Check here DAILY!

course calendar
January
February
March
April
May

lecture notes
Slides- Introduction
Slides- Measurement Review
Slides- Statistics
Slides- Stoichiometry Review

laboratory writeups

practice exams
Are the sample exams like the in-class exams?
Checklist of skills to master for each exam
Take a practice exam
What about the final?

web resources
Links for instrumental techniques
Links for general chemistry
Quick Reference Periodic Table


description

Instrumental Techniques (CHEM 321) introduces applications of potentiometric, electrochemical, spectrophotometric, and chromatographic techniques to standard and trace analyses of water, soil, pharmaceuticals, and biological materials. The course is intended for nonchemistry science majors. Taking this course disallows credit for CHEM 421.

General Chemistry I and II (CHEM 101 and 102) are required prerequisites.

Instructor

The lecture and laboratory instructor is Dr. Fred Senese (321 Tawes Hall, X-4153). Scheduled office hours are 9:00-10:00 MWF, 1:00-3:00 F, but you are welcome to come to see him at any time. His schedule for Spring 1999 is here. You may also email questions and comments to senese@antoine.frostburg.edu, or post them on the Chemistry 321 bulletin board.

Scheduled Meetings


Time Room Instructor Attendance
Lecture WF 11:00-11:50 311 TH Senese Expected
Laboratory TR 9:30-12:30 312 TH Senese Mandatory

Review sessions will be scheduled before each examination and at your request.

Course Materials


Required Analytical Chemistry: An Introduction, 6th Ed., D. A. Skoog, D. M. West, F. J. Holler, Saunders (1993).
Required Approved safety goggles (side, bottom, and top enclosed)
Required Bound laboratory notebook (with duplicate numbered pages and carbons)
Required Scientific calculator (must have EXP or EE key)

Lecture notes, laboratory writeups, and practice exams will be placed on reserve at the library and linked to this site. Several analytical chemistry texts and workbooks are available in the room outside my office (329-3 Tawes).

Grading Policy

Lab/Lecture Quizzes 20%
Hour Exams 20%
Laboratory Reports 40%
Final Exam 15%
Final Project 5%

The lowest quiz, hour exam, and report grades will be dropped. Missed quizzes, hour exams, or reports will be recorded as a grade of zero.

Attendance of review sessions, lectures and office hours is not considered in the calculation of final grades.

An overall grade of 90 or above is an A; B = 80-89; C = 70-79; D = 60-69.

The NC and CS grades will not be given in this course. Grades will be posted outside my office door under aliases assigned in the first laboratory period. Please notify me immediately of any discrepancies.

Academic Misconduct

We rigorously adhere to the FSU policy on scholastic conduct. Discussing your lab reports with others outside of class is not inappropriate. Submitting another person's work as your own IS inappropriate. Altering laboratory data and deliberately falsifying calculations to arrive at the expected results constitutes scientific fraud.

University regulations require that the following statements be included in any course syllabus:

Academic dishonesty is defined to include any form of cheating and/or plagiarism. Cheating includes, but is not limited to, such acts as stealing or altering testing instruments; falsifying the identitiy of persons for any academic purpose; offering, giving, or recieving unauthorized assistance on an examination, quiz, or other written or oral material in a course, or falsifying information on any type of academic record. Plagiarism is the presentation of written or oral material in a manner which conceals the true source of documentary material; or the presentation of material which uses hypotheses, conclusions, evidence, data, or the like, in a way that the student appears to have done work which he/she did not, in fact, do.

The University will not tolerate disorderly or disruptive conduct which substantially threatens, harms, or interferes with university personnel or orderly university processes and functions. A faculty member may require a student to leave the classroom when his/her behavior disrupts the learning environment of the class. A student found responsible for disruptive behavior in the classroom may be administratively withdrawn from the course.

Examinations

Quiz and examination problems will be drawn from assigned readings, laboratory writeup questions, and lecture material. Since the lowest examination and problem set grades are dropped, make-up tests and assignments will not be given. A missed problem set or hour exam will be recorded as a zero.

Late Policy

Unless otherwise noted, lab reports must be handed in at the beginning of class one week after the lab has been performed. Lab reports are penalized by 10% for each day late. No assignments will be accepted after the last scheduled class meeting.

Laboratory Safety

State law requires that safety goggles must be worn in the laboratory at all times. Contact lenses, sandals, or open-top shoes should not be worn in the laboratory. Careless handling of some reagents may stain, bleach, or ruin clothing- so dress casually.


Laboratory Notebook

A laboratory notebook with carbons and duplicate page numbers is required. The first few pages should be reserved for a table of contents. Data for each experiment should be entered directly into the notebook, in ink, at the time the experiment is performed. Each experiment should be entered on a different page, with your name, section number, desk number, partner's name, and the title of the experiment indicated in the page heading. Carbon copies of your notebook entries must be given to your instructor in lab on completion of the experiment. Your results are graded using data taken directly from the blue sheet; if the blue sheet is missing or unreadable your report can not be graded.

Admission to the Laboratory

You must have safety goggles and your laboratory notebook to be admitted to the laboratory. In order to finish the experiment in the al lotted time, you must read the experiment write-up before coming to the laboratory.

To ensure that some prior consideration has been given to the experiment, a brief quiz may be given at the beginning of the laboratory session. Try to answer the pre-lab questions before coming to lab; they test your understandi ng of the experiment and the subsequent calculations. Students arriving late will not be admitted if the experiment can not be completed in the time remaining.

Advanced Techniques Laboratories

Choose at least four of the following, with no more than one from each category. Advanced experiments must be performed at the scheduled meeting times (9:30-12:20 AM). Signup for Advanced Labs will begin in late March. Each experiment requires special apparatus and can usually accomodate no more than two workers at once. Upon completion of an experiment, you may choose to perform any other available experiment on a first-come, first served basis. A schedule posted outside the laboratory lists all currently available experiments. You must sign up for an experiment at least one week in advance to guarantee its availability.

The experiments require one to two full laboratory sessions for completion. To finish the experiment in the limited time available, you must carefully read the laboratory writeups and any relevant reserve articles BEFORE beginning work.

Final Project

The final project involves selection and implementation of a standard instrumental technique (taken from a source such as Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater or AOAC Methods) to analyze natural air, water, soil, or tissue samples. A laboratory report (adhering to the format given below) is required for the final project.

Laboratory Report Format

Reports must contain a cover sheet, an abstract, a tabulation of experimental data and calculated results, a discussion/conclusions section, answers to any questions posed in the writeup, and a list of references. Label each section and put your name in the top right hand corner of each page. The entire report (excluding attachments such as computer printouts, spectra, and chromatograms) should not exceed four pages.

Cover Sheet and Abstract. The first page of the report should clearly indicate the title of the experiment, your name, your section, the date you completed the experiment, the date the report was submitted, and the names of any co-workers. The first page should also include an abstract. The abstract is a two or three sentence summary of your report. The abstract must do the following:

A sample abstract is given below:

Hydronium hydrate cluster stabilities were determined by pulsed high-pressure mass spectrometry. Enthalpies for the reactions

H3O+ · (n-1)H2O + H2O + M = H3O+ · nH2O

were measured as -33.0 ± 1.2, -21.0 ± 0.9, and -16.0 ± 0.8 kcal/mol at the 95% confidence level for n = 1, 2, and 3, respectively. All enthalpies were within 2% of values obtained by Kebarle and co-workers.

Report Forms. Report forms (provided by the introductory laboratory writeups) summarize data from your notebook and organize calculated final results. The form should be typed or printed in ink. Final results and raw measurements must be rounded to the correct number of significant digits (but do NOT round computed intermediate results.) For advanced labs, you are expected to design your own report form.

Discussion and Conclusion. This section should outline any deductions you can make based on your results. Anything you say in this section must follow logically from your results as they were- not as you think they should have been! If you suspect that your results are flawed you must convince the reader of this.

Sample Calculations. This section is optional, but sometimes allows the grader to give partial credit for an erroneous calculation. Provide clearly labeled sample calculations for one representative run only. You are encouraged to use spreadsheets for repetitive calculations. If you use Microsoft Excel, Lotus 1-2-3, or Quattro Pro, you may submit the spreadsheet on a diskette with your report in lieu of a sample calculations section.

Questions. You must answer all questions posed in the writeup in your report. Attach questions on a separate sheet.

References. Cite any outside information you used to prepare your report. This includes constants, literature values, computer programs, and equations.