This is the course syllabus for Chemistry 115, the instrumental analysis and bioanalytical chemistry class at UC Merced.
A note about printing this page: Please don’t. This page will be at this URL long enough to share with your children and grandchildren. You don’t need a paper copy of it.
Instructor: Professor Erik Menke
Class Room and Hours: COB 209, MWF 9-9:50 am
Office: Science and Engineering, Room 358
Office Hours: Drop by my office any time if you have questions or concerns. If I don’t have time to talk, we can schedule a time. In addition, I will be available for the half-hour immediately following class at the Lantern Café in the library.
Contacting me: In addition to visiting my office, you can reach me by e-mail or leaving a message on the UCMCrops website for the class.
Course description and objectives: Analytical chemistry is one of the broadest disciplines of chemistry, with the primary goal of developing the tools and experiments to either qualitatively or quantitatively measure chemical composition. Historically, analytical chemistry was primarily perfomed by wet methods, most notably titrations, but over the last decade instrumental tools and techniques have come to dominate the field. This course focuses on how these instruments work, and what samples they are best suited for. The instruments and experiments we will look at are FTIR, FT-NMR, UV-Vis, GC, HPLC, AAS and AES, and electrophoresis.
Expected Student Learning Outcomes: By the end of the semester you should be able to:
-Identify the most useful technique and instrument for a given analytical problem.
-Identify the different parts of analytical instruments and explain how they work.
-Calculate relative and absolute amounts of an unknown substance from instrumental data, as well as the error in the measurements.
Required Text: Undergraduate Instrumental Analysis by James W. Robinson, Eileen M. Skelly Frame, and George M. Frame II (Sixth Edition)
Prerequisites: Chem 112, which may be taken concurrently.
Class Policies: The number one rule is to respect the time of everybody in the class, including the instructor. Ultimately, I believe that this is the only rule we should need, but it is rather vague. To help overcome the vagueness of said rule, here are some examples of what this covers:
-Refrain from using cell phones in class (this includes texting or having the ring volume above vibrate).
-Refrain from talking out of turn.
-Do not tease, taunt, or belittle others.
-Anything that someone else reads (e-mails, homework, message posts) should be legible, with (mostly) proper grammatical structure and spelling.
Academic Integrity: This is a topic that I take very seriously. While I understand that shortcuts are attractive, they very rarely end up helping in the long run. Dishonest practices, like cheating and plagarism, typically prevent you from understanding the material, which is ultimately why you are here in school. A full description of the University policy, as well as the judicial process and potential penalties, can be found on the student life website. Students should be familiar with the University policy as anyone caught violating the policy will be dealt with harshly.
Disability Services: A disability should not impede learning. To this end, UC Merced provides a number of options to help people with disabilities suceed in their academic career. If you have a disibility, I encourage you to contact the University Disability Services Office to find out how they can help. You can find out more information on their website, e-mailing them at disabilityservices@ucmerced.edu, or calling them at 209.228.6996. In addition, please let me know so that we can take measures to ensure that it has a minimal effect on your ability to understand the material.
Exams: There will be three in-class exams, worth 50 points each. The final will consist of a 15 minute presentation on an instrumental topic or technique of your choice, and will be worth 50 points. There will be no make-up’s allowed for missed exams. If you miss an exam and have a legitimate excuse (i.e. doctor’s note or equivalent) the other exams will be renormalized to make up the point difference (i.e. the other two exams will be worth 75 points each).
Exam Schedule:
Exam 1: Friday, October 2.
Exam 2: Friday, November 6.
Exam 3: Wednesday, December 9.
Presentation: Friday, December 11 from 8-11 am.
Homework: There will be two kinds of homework problems:
“Practice” problems will be assigned for you to practice the material. We will attempt to go over them in class, but they will not be graded. Exam problems are typically of this difficulty.
“Real” problems will be tougher, and will be graded. There will be, on average, one problem set assigned each week, and it will be due one week later. Each set of “real” problems will be worth 10 points, although the overall homework grade will be renormalized to 100 total points. If you work with, or receive help from, someone, please put their name under yours. There is no policy against outside help, and collaboration is an important skill to learn, but it is also important to credit others when help is received.
Grading: Overall, there will be a total of 300 points, 50 points for each exam, 50 points for the presentation, and 100 points for homework. The grading will follow a standard 10 point scale (100 - 90 = A, 89 - 80 = B, 79 - 70 = C...), with any +/- to be left for the instructors discretion.