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Instructor:

Textbook: Skoog, Holler and Nieman,

class Web site: www.bgsu.edu/departments/chem/faculty/endres/ch454/ch454_home.htm

(also available through undergraduate/courses on chemistry department web page)

exams:

There will be four 1-hr exams (400 points, 100 points each)

February 12 (Monday)
March 5 (Monday)
April 6 (Friday)
April 25 (Wednesday)
- (dates may change slightly to match the rate at which we cover the material)

Final Exam: comprehensive two hour exam (200 points)

other graded materials:

We will generally follow the textbook and we will cover most sections of the book.

There are 33 relatively short chapters, so we need to average slightly over 2 chapters/week.
I have a tendency to spend additional time and emphasis on methods and instruments that you have not encountered in your BGSU courses and labs. (Examples would include X-ray methods, Raman Spectroscopy, Semiconductor based sensors, viscosity, thermal methods of analysis, mechanical characteristics such as tensile strength.) These are all important processes, widely used. This may cause us to spend slightly reduced time on important, but more familiar instruments like NMR, Mass Spectrometry and IR Spectroscopy.)
It's important to realize that this is not a course on instruments. This is a course on methods of obtaining reliable information to characterize a sample or material. This is analytical chemistry, both qualitative (what is it?) and quantitative (how much is present?) Of course, instruments are an important part of the process of answering these questions and the course focuses on methods that use instruments. But the course also focuses on issues of reliability and calibration-- both of methods and instruments. We must also be concerned with chemical analysis as an economic process-- and will examine issues of instrument cost, operating costs, instrument obsolescence, personnel, training and speed.

The grouping of chapters (from the index) suggests logical breaking points for exams

Chapter 1-- Introduction
Chapter 2- Electrical Components
Chapter 3- Instrumentation Amplifiers
Chapter 4- Digital Electronics and Computers
Chapter 5- Signals and Noise
Chapter 6- Spectroscopic Methods
Chapter 7-- Optical Components ...............approximate coverage of exam 1 (February 12)
Chapter 8- Atomic Spectroscopy
Chapter 9- AA and Atomic Fluorescence
Chapter 10 - AES
Chapter 11 Atomic Mass Spectrometry
Chapter 12 Atomic X-Ray Spectra
Chapter 13 Molecular UV-Vis Spectra
Chapter 14 - Applications of Absorption Spectra
Chapter 15- Fluorescence / Luminescence .............approximate coverage of exam 2 (March 5)
Chapter 16- Intro to IRChapter 17- Applications of IR
Chapter 18- Raman Spectra
Chapter 19- NMR and ESR
Chapter 20- Mass Spectra
Chapter 21- Surface Characterization.......................approximate coverage of exam 3 (April 6)
Chapter 22 Electroanalytical methods
Chapter 23 Potentiometry
Chapter 24 Coulometry
Chapter 25 Voltammetry
Chapter 26 Chromatography
Chapter 27 GC
Chapter 28 HPLC
Chapter 29- Supercritical Fluids
Chapter 30- Capillary Electrophresis.............approximate coverage of exam 4 (April 25)
Chapter 31 Thermal Methods
Chapter 32 Radiochemical Methods
Chapter 33 Automated Methods of Analysis

other good references

texts:

journals:

Analytical Chemistry (published monthly, American Chemical Society)
Review of Scientific Instruments (published monthly, American Institute of Physics)
American Laboratories
- (a free publication; articles on instruments and trends
- the advertising is actually a useful guide to the field)