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Chemistry 333: Instrumental Analysis

Introduction

Prerequisites

  1. CEM 143 or CEM 251 or CEM 351 and

  2. CEM 262 or CEM 186H
Not open to students enrolled in CEM 372.

Objectives of this Course

This course is an introduction to instrumental analysis - that is, the measurement of chemical systems using instruments. Throughout the course, the principles underlying common instrumental methods will be discussed in lectures. Selected experiments that demonstrate the application of these principles will be performed in the laboratory. Data and calculations will be recorded in a scientific notebook.

Each type of instrument has a unique set of strengths and weaknesses that makes it suitable for some measurements but not others. Some techniques are best for qualitative determinations and others are best for quantitation. During this course, you should develop an understanding of these advantages and disadvantages and ultimately be able to suggest suitable instrumental methods for particular problems.

It is important to note that the purpose of this course is not to teach you how to operate a particular instrument: there are far too many different instrument designs. However, each class of instrument is based on a similar measurement of a chemical or physical property. Therefore, if you understand the basic operation of each method, you should be able to operate any instrument based on similar principles. To gain a sound understanding, the following will be considered:

  1. the property or quantity of the chemical system to be measured

  2. the physical and chemical principles upon which the measurement is based

  3. generation of a signal by a suitable detector (transducer) and the processing of the signal to convert it to a form appropriate for a readout device, and

  4. the strengths and limitations of each particular instrumental method or approach.

Laboratory Experiments

Each experiment will be performed by students working in pairs (sometimes larger groups will be used). During the first laboratory period each pair will work on the same experiment. Thereafter, because of the limited number of instruments, experiments will be performed on a rotation basis.



This page created Jaunary 1, 2000 by Simon J. Garrett.