Teaching kinetics

He has been teaching Kinetics and Reactors to t undergraduate students at the Chemical Engineer-... 

Tt is difficult to give definite instruction in reality for kinetic studies. Although in general all studies have common features, each one is somewhat different, so once a general idea is formed how to do it, go ahead and start. The first study will teach what should have been done. This learning period may repeat itself a few times. Scientific publications usually report the last and finally successful set of experiments and do not list the many less successful tries. 

Many books on chemical kinetics have been published, but few of these are devoted solely or even primarily to solution phase chemical kinetics. Textbooks of physical organic chemistry must deal with solution chemistry, but kinetics is only one part of their subject. From my teaching experience I have concluded that there is no current text that meets the needs, as I interpret them, of the student and practitioner of solution chemical kinetics. 

One of the important elements of the Model of Modelling framework is the consideration of the snbject s previous ideas as one of the experiences needed to support the proposition of the mental model. In this teaching situation, students previous ideas, mainly those related to the kinetic particle model, were essential to the inclusion of fundamental attributes in their models (e.g., the dynamicity of the chemical transformation). 

The present chapter will focus on the practical, nuts and bolts aspects of this particular CA approach to modeling. In later chapters we will describe a variety of applications of these CA models to chemical systems, emphasizing applications involving solution phenomena, phase transitions, and chemical kinetics. In order to prepare readers for the use of CA models in teaching and research, we have attempted to present a user-friendly description. This description is accompanied by examples and hands-on calculations, available on the compact disk that comes with this book. The reader is encouraged to use this means to assimilate the basic aspects of the CA approach described in this chapter. More details on the operation of the CA programs, when needed, can be found in Chapter 10 of this book. 

According to Birss and Truax (72), students are likely to experience confusion and difficulty with more advanced treatments of the subject. With regard to conceptual difficulties, the authors looked at the equilibrium potential, the reversal of sign of electrode reactions that are written as oxidations, and the differences between galvanic (electrochemical) and electrolytic cells. An approach for teaching these topics at the freshman level was then proposed. In this approach, concepts from thermodynamics and chemical kinetics are interwoven with those of electrochemical measurements. Very useful are... 

Many other topics also can be considered for inclusion in the first-year physical chemistry course. Enzyme kinetics, the study of the solid state and crystallography (42), and polymer chemistry would be especially interesting to the biochemistry students in our classes. The choices are limited only by the creativity of faculty teaching the physical chemistry courses. 

Figure 2. Kinetic energy distribution of an 80 molecule sample of CO (g) at 25 °C and 10 atm, calculated with the teaching program Odyssey.

Arguments for the presentation of kinetic theory and chemical kinetics as the first topics taught in the initial physical chemistry course are presented. This presentation allows the first topic in physical chemistry to be mathematically more accessible, to be highly relevant to modem physical chemistry practice, and to provide an opportunity to make valuable conceptual connections to topics in quantum mechanics and thermodynamics. Preliminary results from a recent survey of physical chemistry teaching practice are presented and related to the primary discussion. It was found that few departments of chemistry have adopted this order of topical presentation. 

At some institutions, however, external constraints prohibit changes in the order of topics, especially if Physical Chemistry I is a service course for other departments, most notably engineering. Further, there are no textbooks in which chemical kinetics is among the first topics, certainly among the most popular textbooks currently used. Our survey of physical chemistry teaching (/)... 

We have been teaching physical chemistry with a kinetics-first orientation for 13 years. Over the course of this past decade we have also examined our students using the ACS Comprehensive Standardized Exam. Form 1995 (16) was used from 1996 through 2003 and Form 2002 (17) was used in 2004 and 2005. This comprehensive exam has been administered at the end of physical chemistry II covering quantum chemistry and spectroscopy. Both versions divide the 60 multiple choice questions into the three canonical areas, T, Q, and D, with the 1995 version assigning 20 questions each to the three areas. The 2002 version assigns 15 questions to the dynamics section and 25 to the quantum section. A few statistical mechanics questions are also scattered among these sections. 

O Arthur M. Last, "Doing the Dishes An Analogy for Use in Teaching Reaction Kinetics," /. Chem. Educ., Vol. 62,1985,... 

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