Undergraduate - UnitPSC2031 - Analytical methods

At the end of this unit students will be able to:

1. Describe the chemical compositions of aqueous solutions, the effects of electrolytes on chemical equilibria and solve equilibrium calculations for simple and complex systems;
2. Describe the basic principles underlying gravimetric and titrimetric methods of analysis (including precipitation titrations, neutralization titrations, complex acid/base systems, complexation reactions and titrations and non-aqueous titrations) and perform simple calculations to determine the concentrations of species of interest;
3. Develop an understanding of basic separations and chromatographic theory and apply this knowledge in predicting the separation, identification and quantitation of compounds;
4. Acquire knowledge of commonly used instrumental techniques for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of compounds, namely GLC and HPLC;
5. Explain the basic properties of electromagnetic radiation and the interactions between radiation and matter on an atomic and molecular level and calculate specific spectrochemical descriptors (energy, frequency, wavelength, % transmittance and absorbance);
6. Describe the functions of instrumental components used in optical spectrometry;
7. Describe the basic principles and applications of molecular absorption, molecular fluorescence and atomic absorption/emission spectroscopy;
8. Describe the fundamental principles of electrochemistry in terms of oxidation/reduction reactions, perform simple electrochemical calculations based upon the Nernst equation and describe the application of electrochemical techniques (oxidation/reduction titrations, potentiometry and voltammetry) to the analysis of commercially significant compounds.