kinetics

I recently had the opportunity to attend a conference of the Associated Chemistry Teachers of Texas (ACT2). I had  great time interacting with and learning from a whole bunch of wonderful chemical educators from the great state of Texas.

Co-Authored by Dean J. Campbell* and Bozana Lojpur* *Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois

Bottles of soda are sealed under high pressures of CO₂, or P_CO2. This causes a substantial amount of CO₂ to dissolve into the beverage, giving the drink its fizziness. But what exactly is the pressure inside a bottle of soda?

I previously "NGSS-ified" one of my favorite inquiry labs to begin the kinetics unit; Alka Seltzer Rockets. In this lab students are given a film canister, a quantity of Alka Seltzer of their own choosing and any materials available in the room to investigate factors that affect the rate of reaction.

An article recently published in the Journal of Chemical Education by Ruth E. Nalliah¹ describes a great experiment for studying chemical kinetics that is extremely simple to set up and carry out. The experiment involves monitoring the reaction between blue food dye and hydrogen peroxide in the presence of base:

Kermit the Frog sings, “It’s not easy being green” but the role of Green Chemistry is to show people not only is it easier, but also the way we need to be doing chemistry. Green Chemistry is defined as, “The design of chemical products and processes that reduce and/or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances.

A diamond is forever…at least that’s how the advertising slogan goes. Many chemists know this saying is not entirely true, because diamonds are converted to graphite under normal conditions: