9451290 Crean The undergraduate laboratory curricula for General Chemistry and Analytical Chemistry will be improved using a DOS diode-array ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometric system equipped with a sipper. Since the entire spectrum of a solution can be recorded in a few seconds using a diode-array instrument, all students in a general chemistry laboratory section will be able to record the entire ultraviolet and/or visible absorption spectra of species and mixtures being analyzed. Because the DOS based spectrophotometric system can quantitate the components in a mixture, it will now be possible to include a kinetics experiment giving concentration versus time data in the General Chemistry curriculum. The enhancements and additions to the laboratory curriculum will serve (1) to facilitate students' knowledge bases for making decisions about how to take spectrophotometric data and (2) to improve students' understandings of (2a) equilibrium systems, (2b) kinetics of reactions, and (2c) relationships among visible spectrophotometry, colors of chemical species, and d-electron energy levels. Additionally students will be using instrumentation comparable to that which they will encounter in industry and in the health care arena.
