Chem 221 Quantitative Analysis Laboratory

Syllabus for Spring 2017

Prof. Steven D. Brown
Office: 239 Brown Laboratory           Voice mail: 831-6861
E-mail: sdb@udel.edu
Office Hours: TR1100, T1300

Texts/Resources/Readings/Supplies

Required course texts:

Staff, UD, Laboratory Manual for Quantitative Chemistry, v1.1, UD, Newark, DE 2016. Available at the UD Bookstore and Lieberman’s. This text has all laboratories for the semester and provides some background on data collection, notebook organization, and error analysis.

The required texts from the associated lecture course (Chem 220) supplement this book.

D.C. Harris, Quantitative Chemical Analysis, 9th Editon, Freeman, 2016. This text is called DCH here. You should already have this book from Chem 220.

D. Harvey, Analytical Chemistry 2.0, (e-book, 2009). The text is available on the Chem 220 Sakai site. It is called AC here. This book is available from the Sakai site for Chem 220.

Other Required Items:
Goggles: You are required to wear approved chemistry safety goggles – with splash guards – while in the Chem 221 laboratory. Safety glasses as used in biology are not acceptable.

Laboratory Notebook: You will need a bound laboratory notebook with numbered pages. These can be purchased at either of the bookstores (UD Bookstore or Lieberman’s) or online. Please be aware that while notebooks with carbon copies and tear-out pages are used in organic lab, these notebooks are NOT acceptable for this class.

USB memory stick: Any USB 2 memory stick, formatted as FAT for Windows, is fine.
Macs can read FAT formatted files. You will need this to transfer data, mainly after Spring Break.

Excel Software: You will need access to and some familiarity with Excel or equivalent software to complete the analyses in this course. You can use Excel on University computers or you can use an Excel work-alike program (e.g., Numbers or OpenOffice) if you choose.

Study Tips/Learning Resources

This course involves lab work, data analysis/statistics and some basic report writing. You will learn some basic data analysis in Chem 220 that will be put to use here.

You also learned basic lab techniques in previous chemistry courses (e.g., Chem 103 and Chem 104) and you’ll need to use those skills in weighing, in making solutions and in doing dilutions. A brief review of that material is a good idea, especially if you have not done any solution – making for some time. You can review this topic in DCH, Chapter 2 or in AC Chapter 2. If you are a visual learner, there is a useful set of podcast videos available from ITunes U. (Look for “Chemistry Lab Procedures” in the “Chemistry” area.) There are also videos of varying quality on YouTube.

You will need to use Excel to produce labeled plots in this course. Some of these plots
will require you to run a least-squares fit to your data before plotting. You may also need
to propagate error. These topics are covered briefly in Chem 220. You should review this methodology (DCH Chapter 3-5 and AC Chapter 4-5) prior to the first lab session (Lab 6) requiring these skills.

Student feedback on instruction

I welcome student feedback on the course, either in anonymous form or signed.
There will be the usual end-of-term on-line student feedback, with some supplemental material in addition to the departmental student feedback form.

Catalog Description

Chemistry 221 is an introductory-level, overview laboratory course in applications of
chemical equilibrium theory to quantitative measurements. It also introduces basic chemical instrumentation for chemical analysis. Topics introduced in Chem 221 include classical analytical measurements and basic measurements in spectrometry, chromatography and electrochemistry. This is a required, one-credit, laboratory course intended for majors in Chemistry and closely related fields. Prerequisites are a passing grade in any of Chem 102, 104, 105 or 112. The co-requisite course Chem 220 must be taken with this laboratory unless the student is repeating this course and has a satisfactory grade in Chem 220.

Course Requirements

This course involves 10 laboratory projects, each involving measurements and a brief written report that reports the measurement, examines experimental error and reports the result with an estimate of its error. The measurements are usually made as a team, but the reports are done separately.

Laboratory work in Chem 221 is intended for students with prior lab experience in introductory chemistry (Chem 104 or equivalent).

Course Policies

Attendance Policy:

Students are expected to come prepared to laboratory and to focus on the tasks assigned in order to complete all assigned laboratory work in the allotted time. You are expected to attend all scheduled laboratories and to pay careful attention to the pre-lab discussion. Because of the limited availability of the lab, there is no possibility of re-performing laboratories or of continuing uncompleted work in another section. You are responsible for all information given in the pre-lab, whether or not you are in attendance.

Report Submission Policies:

Laboratory reports are to be submitted via Sakai. Unless specified differently, you should submit only the results page as a doc file to Sakai by the date and time specified.

Graded labs will generally be available by no later than 1 week after student submission.
All grade disputes must be submitted no later than 5 business days after the graded work
has been returned. A decision on the dispute will be made promptly and the new grade will be made available to you on Sakai.

Late laboratory reports will generally penalized at 10% per business day late, unless an arrangement has been made with the course instructor (not a TA) for a late submission. Any lab reports not submitted within 7 business days after the due date, and without an excuse, will receive a score of 0 plus any points earned for the prelab, clean up and the notebook. These may not be recalculated (see below) to improve the score.

Recalculation will be required on reports that have errors in computation. You will receive a 0 grade for these until you resubmit and receive an updated score for your corrected results. You have 1 week (5 business days) from receiving the recalculation notice to resubmit your corrected results to Sakai. A recalculation can only be done once, and the penalty for having to recalculate is 10% of your lab report score. Any recalculations not resolved in 5 business days revert to a score of 0 plus any points earned for the prelab, clean up and the notebook.

UD holidays, UD closures (for any reason) and Spring Break do not count as business days for submissions, disputes, late reports or for recalculations.

Attendance and Excused Absences Policy:

The class policy on absences follows the University policy, which can be found here. Any absences should be reported to the class instructor, if possible, in advance of the lab period, and the student missing a lab will need to provide an excuse note to be offered a make-up. Absences will be excused for medical reasons (serious illness requiring a doctor’s care), family emergencies, some (but not all) University sanctioned events, and employer-required absences. Scheduled absences must be made known in writing (by e-mail) to the course instructor in advance so that arrangements can be made for adjustment of due dates of laboratory assignments. Scheduled absences may require an e-mail from the Dean’s Office or from the employer to support student claims.

Minor absences may be excused at the discretion of the course instructor on a case-by-case basis, depending on the reason for the absence and what is missed. Any make-up laboratory work requires the prior written permission of the course instructor, not a teaching assistant.

Final Deadline for Graded Work Policy:

All laboratory work must be completed and all reports and recalculations must be submitted to Sakai by no later than 4:00 PM on Reading Day.

Academic Honesty Policy:

You are encouraged to become familiar with The University’s Policy of Academic Honesty found in the UD Student Guide to University Policies available at http://www1.udel.edu/stuguide/16-17/code.html . More on the whole issue of academic integrity can be found at http://www1.udel.edu/studentconduct/ai.html . Policies delineated in the UD Catalog apply to this course. All reports for Chem 221 must be your own work. While laboratory work and subsequent workup for Chem 221 can be done in collaboration with others in the course, you are expected to submit your own report with your own graphs and tables. You may not re-use another person’s graphs or tables in your report. You may not submit another person’s work, individually or jointly, whether or not that person grants you permission to do so.

Please be aware that by turning any work into the instructor of this course, you acknowledge being made aware of the academic honesty policy and affirm your adherence to both the letter and spirit of the policy.

E-Mail Policy:

The instructor does not use Twitter, text messaging or other social media (e.g., Facebook), so important notices and correction of errors will be sent to the e-mail distribution list linked to Sakai for the class to provide the fastest dissemination of the information. The registrar will include your campus e-mail account on these class distribution lists, so plan to check it regularly.

The instructor makes every effort to respond promptly to e-mailed questions or concerns from students. Be aware that because University filters may trap and remove mail – especially external mail – under some circumstances, the instructor may not receive or be able to respond to e-mail originating from some off-campus e-mail accounts. Contact by UD e-mail is advised.

Grading
Grading, Evaluation Policies and Procedures

Grading in Chem 221 is done on the basis of scores in 10 laboratories. Each lab is scored from 100 points on the basis of the notebook and data quality, the pre-lab assignment, and the laboratory report:

Notebook:                        10 points

Pre-lab assignment:      10 points

Lab clean-up:                  10 points

(Note: The three items above are each scored as either 10, 5 or 0 points, depending on the assessment of the TA.)

Lab Report:                      70 points
(a rubric used to assess the lab report portion of the grade is posted on the Sakai site for Chem 221)

TOTAL                            100 points (for each of the 10 laboratories)
Course grades are determined from the total points earned out of the 1000 possible points.

Prior Chem 221 courses given by Prof. Brown have had an average grade of 2.25 ( C+).

Calendar

Schedule:

All laboratories are performed in 106 Quasitia Drake Laboratory.

*N.B.: This schedule is approximate, and may be adjusted as necessary, as dictated by weather, student needs and other factors.

Course Description

Chem 221 is a laboratory course covering basic methods of chemical analysis using classical volumetric determinations and an introduction to analysis using spectroscopic, chromatographic and electrochemical instrumentation.

Course Help

The Chem 221 Lessons page (on Sakai) has some lab technique hints and other information.

Student Assistance:

Help is available at no cost though the Academic Enrichment Center, where tutors can be found to help with course concepts. Both group and individual tutorial sessions are offered. Mrs. Staib (BrL 102) has a list of for-pay tutors who can help with the material covered in this class. See me before choosing a for-pay tutor. Student visits to teaching assistant or instructor office hours are encouraged if the student has trouble with the calculations or in preparing the report.

Course Objectives

This course (and its companion lecture course) focuses on the development of quantitative measurement and computational skills relevant to the chemical and biochemical sciences and on the strengthening of laboratory and theoretical skills developed in the earlier Chem 10X course.

At the completion of this course, students will be able to:
1. Calculate amounts from basic titrimetric analyses using metal complexing agents, acid/bases, and redox reactions.
2. Calculate concentrations and thermodynamic quantities based on measurement of electrochemical cell potential and current.
3. Evaluate quantitative measurements of concentration via absorption of light by chemical mixtures and chemical calibration.
4. Evaluate quantitative separations of simple mixtures using solvent extraction equilibria and simple chromatography.
5. Propagate error in a measured quantity and determine the confidence interval of a measurement.
6. Compare measured quantities using simple statistical tests.

Students completing this course will have a basic understanding of volumetric and gravimetric measurements and how these are used in quantitative analysis and
will give the student a brief introduction to spectrometric, potentiometric and chromatographic analyses. Practice in propagation of analytical error will enable the student to estimate the error in a derived result.

This course also exposes the student to basic expectations of accuracy and precision in scientific measurements.

This course meets Departmental Objectives 1 and 6.

Teaching Assistant Information:

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Page created by S.D. Brown

Last updated 16 February 2017