Chemistry 164 Winter 2012
Physical Chemistry Lab
Instructor: Shaowei Chen, 148 PSB, 459-5841; shaowei@ucsc.edu
Lectures: Mondays, 11:00 am − 12:10 pm, Social Sciences II 179
Office hours: Tuesday 11:00 am − 12:00 noon, PSB 148
Computer Lab: Thursday 4:00 – 8:00 PM, Ming-Ong PC (Merrill Room 103 – Left Side)
Lab: Thursday 2:00 - 6:00, and Friday 12:30 to 4:30, PSB room 465
TAs: Christopher Deming (cdeming@ucsc.edu), and Bruce Phebus (bphebus@ucsc.edu)
Office hours: TBA
COURSE MATERIALS
A laboratory manual must be purchased at the campus bookstore. It is an essential reading
material. Other materials will be found in the Science Library.
GENERAL POLICIES AND PLANS OF THE COURSE
• The primary emphasis of this course is the experimental investigation of several areas of
physical chemistry. The experiments are drawn from spectroscopy, kinetic gas theory,
chemical kinetics, and electrical properties of matter. Each student is required to complete
the FTIR analysis of HBr molecules and I2 electronic spectroscopy experiments and to
choose two other experiments from four additional ones that are available in the laboratory.
For each of the four required experiments, a comprehensive report must be written. This
report must present the motivation and theory for the experiment, the theory for the
experiment, the experimental method and data, the data and error analysis, and discussion of
the results. The reports will be graded on completeness and clarity.
• Students are asked to form pairs to conduct the experiments, but the experimental reports
must be individually developed and written. The lab reports will be due two weeks after the
experiment is done and should be submitted to the responsible TAs. The reports will be
graded and returned within two weeks. It is advised that the students should plan to do their
experimental work as soon as possible to allow sufficient time to complete the report by the
due date, because no late reports will be accepted.
SIGN UPS FOR EXPERIMENTS AND DUE DATES
• The first lab report will be on FTIR spectroscopic analysis of HBr molecules, which will be
done by all students. You will need access to the computer lab.
• The first experiment is the I2 experiment, which will be done by all students.
• For other experiments, a signup list will be posted outside the door of PSB room 465 two
weeks in advance.
• Signing up is a commitment to do the experiment during the week. Once a group has done
the second experiment, priority will be given to other groups to perform their second
experiment before groups doing their third experiment.
OTHER POLICIES FOR THE COURSE
• READ THE MANUAL and make sure to comply with all the safety rules!
• There will be at least one TA in the lab in the designated lab period.
• Before the experiment begins, the students must submit the written pre-labs to the TA (which
constitute 10% of the lab report scores). The TA will then spend about 10-15 minutes talking
to the students to determine if the students are prepared for the planned experiments. If it is
determined that one or both of the students are not adequately prepared, the TA will ask the
students to leave the lab and to get prepared and sign up for another lab period. If the
students fail to be prepared a second time during this quarter, they will not pass this course.
• Students are encouraged to talk to the instructor and TAs for questions related to the
experiments and report writing. Please do it early and don't wait till the last few days. Failure
to turn in one of the three reports or failure to show up for an assigned lab period is
considered as an automatic "No Pass" to this class.
• Students must pass at least three of the four experiments about which they write reports. A
passing level is the achievement of more than 55% of the possible points for the experiment.
In addition students must obtain at least 50% of all the possible scores on their four
experiments.
• In the Monday lecture, the instructor will cover topics that are directly or indirectly related to
the experiments.
• The final grade will be based on your work on the four required experiments and reports.
Date
Lab Activity
Lab Report Due
W1 – W3
Jan 12, 19, 26
HBr FTIR
(Merrill 103)
Feb 2
W4 – W5
Feb 2 – 3
Feb 9 – 10
I2
(PSB 465)
W6 – W7
Feb 16 – 17
Feb 23 – 24
3rd expt
(PSB 465)
W8 – W9
Mar 1 – 2
Mar 8 – 9
4th expt
(PSB 465)
Feb 16 – 17
Feb 23 – 24
Mar 1 – 2
Mar 8 – 9
Mar 15 – 16
Mar 22 – 23