Laboratory instruction books

The Unit Operations Laboratory at IIT was started in the early 1910s. The Unit Operations outlook was developed by Professor McCormack in the form of senior projects. The laboratory instruction book contributed many of the experiments in the book "Applications of Chemical Engineering," edited by Professor McCormack. Students worked in teams of two or three on projects proposed by instructors or proposed their own experiments. Usually the project involved the building of an equipment item. These equipment items and the experiments were updated from year to year. The laboratory portion of the curriculum required the completion of twenty-four of these home-grown and continuously modified experiments over a span of three semesters. The result was a chemical engineering graduate who could devise a practical way to evaluate the results of industrial processes and to determine the best way to develop these processes. 

Since Dr Vogel died in 1966, the publishers asked me to prepare this new edition. When undertaking the enormous task, I wanted to preserve all that made this popular book so good the detailed theoretical introduction, the well illustrated laboratory instructions and the rich selection of reactions. Nevertheless, because of the age of the text and changes in emphasis and style of the teaching of qualitative inorganic analysis, some rather drastic changes have had to be made. 

The classified tables in Part C have not previously been used in actual laboratory instruction and suggestions in regard to corrections and additions from those who have occasion to use them in classwork will be appreciated. The tables are intended only for preliminary aid before resorting to the advanced reference books. Formulas and specific instructions for the choice of deriva-... 

The main aspect of the job of the top floor person is to pump solvents or oil to various reactors and blenders. Instructions are issued on a job-card or by phone. The instructions are entered in a log book (which is kept by the top floor worker) and on a record card which has to be returned to the laboratory at the end of the shift. To prepare for pumping, protective clothing must be worn. After the required amoimt of solvent is set on the meter, the worker has to connect the meter and the pipeline with a hose and then open the valve on the pipeline (see Figure 7.10). Before starting the pump, the blender valve... 

The book does not aim at being a complete laboratory guide, but is Intended to provide a systematic course of practical instruction, illustrating a great variety of reactions and processes with a very moderate outlay in materials and apparatus. 

Additional information may be had on storage of chemicals from several sources. Material Safety Data Sheets, for example, have specific instructions with regard to storage. The local fire inspector will have good suggestions, and much can be found in reference books. Above all, the laboratory operator should throughly familiarize himself with all chemicals to be used in order to develop a safe storage system. 

Manufacturers of TLC materials and accessories are well prepared to satisfy the needs for professionally performed PLC. High-quality precoated preparative plates are available from a number of eommercial sources. Alternatively, less expensive or specialty preparative plates ean be homemade in the laboratory, and loose sorbents and coating devices ean be purehased for this purpose. More-or-less-automated devices can also be purehased for band application of higher quantities of sample solutions to preparative layers. At least for some users, sophisticated densitometric and other instrumental techniques are available as nondestructive tools for preliminary detention and identification of separated compounds in order to enhance the effieiency of their isolation. The only aid still missing, and maybe the most important of all, is a comprehensive monograph on PLC that might encourage and instruct many potential users on how to fully benefit from this very versatile, efficient, relatively inexpensive, and rather easy to use isolation and purification technique. This book was planned to fill that void. 

First, by indulging his passionate belief in science for the people, he gave students the kind of hands-on education in chemistry that he had wanted as a young man. Before Frankland, students everywhere learned science from books most never even entered a laboratory. Working tirelessly over a period of 15 years, Frankland gradually changed that and dramatically improved the state of science education in Britain. He compiled a list of 109 experiments that students needed to understand firsthand in order to pass his examinations. He wrote a textbook that became a standard for chemistry instruction, in part because it incorporated his ideas on valency and organic structures and his newly developed notation system. 

Editions subsequent to the first (up to the seventh edition, published in Vienna in 1947) were expanded considerably in collaboration with L. Blangey. The main aim was always to explain the fundamental principles of dye chemistry to the student and, since it was the endeavor of the authors to write a laboratory book and not an encyclopedia, in general only simple examples were given in this work. The preface to the first edition indicated that the processes described were perhaps not the best, but that by following the instructions exactly the results stated would be obtained. In dye chemistry, as is well known, many roads lead to the same goal. 

A detailed analysis of all types of laboratory hazards and the procedures for dealing with them is beyond the scope of this book. Specific hazards are pointed out in coimec-tion with individual experiments. It is also assumed that the instructing staff will provide specific warnings and reminders where needed. Some general remarks on the kinds of safety hazards that should be kept in mind are given in Appendix C, and very complete treatments can be found elsewhere. At this point, we wish to stress a few basic principles that apply to all laboratory work. 

The laboratory was cold and dark. It never used to be, but now it was. I went to the window and flung back the shutters one after another until the room was revealed in all its complicated vastness. Then I sank down on the window seat. Everything was wrong. The laboratory had been the hub of my universe, its wheels turned by fire and water, the instruction of our notebooks, the recording of our processes. I had indexed and labeled its contents myself because my father, fanatical about order and economy, depended on being able to put his hand on a book, a substance, a crucible the instant he needed it. And every instrument had to be maintained to a perfect level of utility scales balanced, chisels polished, irons scrubbed clear of rust, chemicals redated and replenished. Even while the hedges on our land were broken and our roses mildewed, our laboratory had remained airy, well oiled, constant. But now the room was furred by a kind of violent neglect. 

A) n-Butyl Bromide (Sm.). Enter in your note book the calculated amounts of 1-butanol, hydrobromic acid (48 per cent), and sulfuric acid required for the preparation of n-butyl bromide, starting with 0.1 mole of the alcohol. If the instructions in your laboratory are to use the sodium bromide method, calculate the amount as shown in the equation above and use 10 ml of water to dissolve the sodium bromide. Have the instructor approve the amounts before you begin the experiment. 

Have a book, preferably hard backed, in which to write all ideas, plans, discussions with your supervisor and laboratory staff, advice, instructions, problems encountered, sample lists and experimental results. 

The second part of every assignment consists of laboratory work. Full instructions about laboratory work i.e. fitting up of apparatus, recording of results, precautions to be taken etc. On the day of the practical work the students are returned their note-books and those students whose preparatory work is found satisfactory by the teacher are allowed to proceed with the practical work. 

In most of the school still the traditional school chemistry textbooks are in use. Such books are used for reading, revision, to follow instructions for some laboratory exercise etc. However traditional chemistry textbooks have been abandoned in those countries in which process has become a significant feature of school chemistry courses. 

The afore-mentioned books have all been concerned primarily with fatty oils or with the sources of fatty oils, but there are also several recent valuable books which are concerned primarily with foods and which include excellent chapters on edible oils. One of the more recent is Outlines of Food Technology by Harry W. von Loeseke 35). A much more ambitious work which appears in three volumes is The Chemistry and Technology of Food and Food Products edited by Morris B. Jacobs 16). Analytical methods are described in Chemical Analysis of Food and Food Products also by Jacobs 15), and in The Analysis of Foods by Andrew L. Winton and Kate Barber Winton 39). And -one hppk designed for home economics students and containing laboratory experiment instructions is Foods, Chemistry and Cooking by Evelyn G. Halliday and Isabel T. Noble (if3). 

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