Revised August 27, 2008.
Physical Chemistry Lab is one of the most important parts of an undergraduate's University training. Some of the goals of this course are to:
In general, we expect students in this course to perform experiments, analyze data, and present the results in a clear and scholarly manner. This process forms the heart of conducting meaningful scientific research and the skills learned in this lab will last a lifetime. Students are expected to conduct the experiments with minimal assistance from the lab TA and to use their own creativity to solve problems.
In this course, students are expected to conduct three investigations; one in the area of thermodynamics, one in equilibrium and one on transport and bulk properties. A list of experiments is attached. Procedures for these experiments can be found in any number of Physical Chemistry lab books and a selection of these lab books are on reserve in the library. Students are expected to prepare for the lab and to have a detailed procedure before beginning the experiment. Students will work in pairs for each experiment.
Grading:
This report will be team written, 12 pages maximum including figures and tables. Authors should strive to present their material with the utmost conciseness consistent with clarity. The introduction should contain only enough background material to show why the work was done. Experimental descriptions should be referenced and only significant details described. The discussion and conclusion sections should be clear and to the point. The report layout should follow the Journal of Physical Chemistry A/B/C format described, see http://pubs.acs.org/journals/jpcafh/index.html. Ignore the synopsis section, but be sure to include a conclusion clearly stating what was learned from the experiment. Make sure that the reports are present in a modern professional format. Learn how to use the equation editor in your word processor for example superscripts should be presented as
and not as 3.1419527*r^2
Please see me or the TA if you should have questions about your equation editor.
Due Dates
Both a hard copy and a MS Word .doc or .docx file need to be turned in..
Week of Sept. 29th Lab Lecture on Error Analysis.
After completing the second experiment, each student will submit a written report in an abbreviated 3-page format, These reports should be written independently, but co-workers should be listed as co-authors. This report will include an abstract, instead a full written procedure only a reference, calculations and an error analysis for the lab.
Due Date: November 6th.
Both a hard copy and a MS Word .doc or .docx file need to be turned in..
After successful completion of the third experiment, each group will present a 15 minute oral report (using Power Point, overheads, charts or slides) to the rest of the class on the important features of the experiment. For this report, students are encouraged to focus on procedures and calculations with an eye toward helping other students successfully complete this experiment.
Presentation Week: December 1st-3rd
A .ppt or .pptx file need to be turned in.
Each of these reports will be graded based on the following criteria:
Note that results are not included as a specific grading criterion. A
link to the report schedule is given below.
It is assumed that all students have an active e-mail account, access to word processor and spread-sheet software. If you have questions about any of this, please feel free to contact me either in person or electronically.