Intermolecular forces chemistry courses

You might learn about the structure of DNA at the end of your organic chemistry course. For right now, we will be focused on problems that deal primarily with small molecules and therefore, for our purposes, we should think of H-bonding as an interaction a type of intermolecular force. 

Equations of state (EOS) offer many rich enhancements to the simple pV = nRT ideal gas law. Obviously, EOS were developed to better calculate p, V, and T, values for real gases. The point here is such equations are excellent vehicles with which to introduce the fact that gases cannot be really treated as point spheres without mutual interactions. Perhaps the best demonstration of the existence of intermolecular forces that can also be quantified is the Joule-Thomson experiment. Too often this experiment is not discussed in the physical chemistry course. It should be. The effect could not exist if intermolecular forces were not real. The practical realization of the effect is the liquefaction of gases, nitrogen and oxygen, especially. 

Section 10.2 on Intermolecular Forces includes an introduction to electrostatic potential energy maps. We define these surfaces very carefully to provide a solid foundation for our students when they encounter these representations in their organic chemistry courses. 

In the course of time, however, a rather sophisticated scheme has developed of quantitative treatments of solute-solvent interactions in the framework of LSERs. The individual parameters employed were imagined to correspond to a particular solute-solvent interaction mechanism. Unfortunately, as it turned out, the various empirical polarity scales feature just different blends of fundamental intermolecular forces. As a consequence, we note at the door to the twenty-first century, alas with melancholy, that the era of combining empirical solvent parameters in multiparameter equations, in a scientific context, is beginning to fade away. As a matter of fact, solution chemistry researeh is increasingly being occupied by theoretical physics in terms of molecular dynamics (MD) and Monte Carlo (MC) simulations, the integral equation approach, etc. 

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