Journal of Chemical Education最新文献

{"title":"Open-Source DFT Calculations of Electronic Structure to Understand Bonding in Solids","authors":"Mona Layegh,&nbsp; and ,&nbsp;Joseph W. Bennett*,&nbsp;","doi":"10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c0144210.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01442","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01442https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01442","url":null,"abstract":"<p >Computational materials chemistry is an ever-evolving interdisciplinary field where advancements in research capabilities require equally innovative pedagogy that combines learning, content distribution, and access. One area that bridges classroom and laboratory settings with practical hands-on learning is the use of open-source density functional theory (DFT) calculations of electronic band structures. Here, we describe to a general audience the methodology, workflow, and tutorials we have developed over five years to train student researchers. Specifically, these tutorials are for semiconductors and oxides introduced in beginner level courses which are then discussed again at various points later on in the chemistry curriculum. We provide a general overview of the background necessary to combine solid-state chemistry and electronic structure methods for instructors and DFT beginners. The remainder of the tutorial emphasizes structure–property relationships to enhance conceptual learning and make connections across the chemistry curriculum. Complete workflows for computing the electronic structure of semiconductor solids common to undergraduate and graduate chemistry curricula are presented, along with new resources for teaching computational materials chemistry. This tutorial provides multiple sets of input files and a step-by-step visualization guide to calculate band structures and projected density of states (PDOS), along with detailed descriptions that can be used to guide classroom discussions and enhance computational skills. This interdisciplinary tutorial aims to lower the barrier to entry for teachers, students, and researchers new to the field by outlining both the workflow, use, outcomes and assessments possible with freely available resources.</p>","PeriodicalId":43,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chemical Education","volume":"102 5","pages":"1803–1813 1803–1813"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143934392","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Integrating Generative AI in Chemistry Education: Enhancing Career-Ready Writing Skills in Pharmaceutical Science","authors":"Elizabeth Yuriev*,&nbsp;Matthew G. Burton,&nbsp;Drew Knott,&nbsp;Alice E. Terrill,&nbsp;Neale R. C. Jackson and Shuqi Chen,&nbsp;","doi":"10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c0149910.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01499","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01499https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01499","url":null,"abstract":"<p >Integrating generative AI (GenAI) into chemistry education offers opportunities to enhance student engagement and skill development, but its use raises questions about ensuring knowledge accuracy and fostering critical thinking. This study explored a context-based assignment in which undergraduate chemistry students analyzed a pharmaceutical formulation while collaborating with a GenAI tool to draft their reports. Students produced an initial GenAI-generated report, critically evaluated its content, and revised it extensively using authoritative sources. The assignment emphasized professional skills by encouraging students to co-create work that emulates tasks they might encounter in a pharmaceutical career. Analysis of student submissions revealed diverse engagement with GenAI tools. While a fraction of students overrelied on GenAI-generated content, resulting in factual inaccuracies, the majority demonstrated critical engagement by correcting errors, adding physicochemical justifications, and transforming GenAI-generated bullet points into professional, coherent paragraphs. Reflective evaluations further highlighted students’ awareness of GenAI’s strengths, such as efficiency and structure, as well as its limitations, including factual errors and lack of contextual depth. The findings suggest that GenAI can be a powerful tool for enhancing technical chemical writing and critical thinking when paired with structured guidance and iterative feedback. This study highlights the importance of teaching students to critically evaluate and refine GenAI outputs, preparing them for professional scenarios in which collaboration with GenAI will be increasingly common. The assignment provides a framework for integrating GenAI into chemistry and STEM education, balancing technological innovation with the need for scientific rigor and ethical awareness.</p>","PeriodicalId":43,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chemical Education","volume":"102 5","pages":"1991–2001 1991–2001"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143933953","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Upcycling Waste Polycarbonate into N,N’-Diphenylethylurea: A Hands-On Experiment for Undergraduate Chemistry Laboratories","authors":"Shefali Chowdhary,&nbsp;Nitish Kumar,&nbsp;Natacha Henry,&nbsp;Pascal Roussel,&nbsp;Konstantinos Demertzis,&nbsp;Sukhdeep Singh* and Vipan Kumar*,&nbsp;","doi":"10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c0113010.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01130","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01130https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01130","url":null,"abstract":"<p >The urgent challenge of climate change drives the need for sustainable and environmentally friendly practices, such as recycling, upcycling, and sustainable chemistry. Despite their importance, these practices are rarely integrated into undergraduate chemistry laboratories. Here, we describe a hands-on approach suitable for a second-semester organic chemistry lab that incorporates waste management principles, guiding students to recognize the value of repurposing chemical waste. The precursors for this experiment are discarded CDs and DVDs, which are readily available in most households. This not only helps reduce waste but also demonstrates how everyday materials can be transformed into high-value chemicals (HVCs). In this lab, students extract a carbonyl group from old CDs and DVDs, using a process called “carbonyl harvesting,” to show how waste can be turned into valuable materials. The recycled bisphenol A (BPA) is monitored using thin layer chromatography (TLC) and collected separately, while the <i>N,N</i>’-diphenylethylurea is purified by simple filtration and characterized using ¹H, ¹³C NMR, IR, XRD, and melting point analysis. This approach not only reinforces fundamental organic lab techniques but also provides hands-on training in sustainability lab practices, showing students how to integrate waste management, resource recovery, and sustainability into their experimental work. Its versatility allows it to be integrated into chemical engineering, general chemistry, and biotechnology curricula. It serves as a valuable learning tool by demonstrating sustainable process design, functional group preservation, and selective chemical transformations.</p>","PeriodicalId":43,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chemical Education","volume":"102 5","pages":"1737–1744 1737–1744"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://pubs.acs.org/doi/epdf/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01130","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143934170","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Empowering Blind and Partially Sighted Middle School Female Students to Pursue STEM Fields","authors":"Dduha Chehadeh*,&nbsp;Batoul Dashti and Ibtisam Rashid,&nbsp;","doi":"10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c0142010.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01420","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01420https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01420","url":null,"abstract":"<p >The planning, execution, and assessment of a science, namely, chemistry, day for blind and partially sighted female students are described. Twelve female students actively engaged in carrying out scientific experiments using assistive technology (AT). The activities focused mainly on the air around us and the relation between air pressure and volume, namely, Boyle’s law. These activities consisted of hands-on experiments and a role-model presentation. The event was assessed through pre- and post-activity surveys from the published literature and by collecting students’ comments. The students reported that the event was fun and that they learned a lot. The influence of a reputed role model on the female students was evident in their comments, motivating and inspiring them to pursue scientific goals. However, longitudinal studies are recommended to assess the change in female students’ interest in science and foster their interest in pursuing scientific careers.</p>","PeriodicalId":43,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chemical Education","volume":"102 5","pages":"1940–1948 1940–1948"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143934214","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Teaching Softness of Polymer Microgels Employing Atomic Force Microscopy","authors":"M. Friederike Schulte,&nbsp;Simon Schog,&nbsp;Steffen Bochenek,&nbsp;Timon Kratzenberg,&nbsp;Michael Schroeder and Walter Richtering*,&nbsp;","doi":"10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c0085810.1021/acs.jchemed.4c00858","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c00858https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c00858","url":null,"abstract":"<p >Studying the properties of soft nanoparticles exposes students to emerging trends in materials science, fosters interdisciplinary knowledge, and prepares them for their own contributions in both academic and industrial settings. We developed a laboratory atomic force microscopy (AFM) experiment using poly-<i>N</i>-isopropylacrylamide (PNIPAM) microgels and investigated single nanogels as well as monolayers by AFM and quantitative image analysis. The experiments show how soft nanogels are deformed at interfaces, and the students learn to quantify the deformation by quantitative analysis of height and phase images. The deformation is related to a core–corona type of cross-linker distribution inside the microgel. Further experiments address the structure of microgel monolayers and demonstrate structural transitions from a hexagonal phase of microgels in corona–corona contact toward a different regime at higher interfacial concentrations, in which microgels form a second hexagonal phase in core–core contact. A quantitative analysis of height images provides the distribution of nearest-neighbor distances. The students use dip-coating to prepare the samples and learn how to correlate AFM experiments in the dry state, i.e., at the solid/air interface after evaporation of the solvent, with properties of the microgel in bulk solution and at the water/air interface.</p>","PeriodicalId":43,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chemical Education","volume":"102 5","pages":"2013–2019 2013–2019"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143933950","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Review of Undergraduate Chemistry Teaching in Higher Education during 2019–2023","authors":"Wendy A. Loughlin*,&nbsp; and ,&nbsp;Sarah L. Cresswell,&nbsp;","doi":"10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c0143510.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01435","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01435https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01435","url":null,"abstract":"<p >This review examines the evolution of tertiary undergraduate chemistry teaching from 2019 to 2023, including in response to the global pandemic’s impact on teaching and learning methods and whether those adaptations have persisted. The authors assessed the current educational landscape against standards set by leading accreditation bodies, the American Chemical Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. A systematic research method allowed comprehensive coverage of peer reviewed literature using two databases: Web of Science and SciFinder. A total of 511 papers were included in this review, and 245 highly cited articles were classified into five themes: students as learners, curriculum, instructional material, educational innovation, and context. Using these themes, it was possible to find the major implications of research in tertiary chemistry teaching within the literature for the five-year period. Key findings show that experiential learning through in-person laboratory activities is affirmed. Virtual resources developed during the pandemic, however, were mostly moved post pandemic to prelaboratory or complementary activities. Integration of innovative technologies and games into teaching can improve student engagement and learning, but also presents opportunities, such as generative artificial intelligence for the development of student critical thinking skills and communication skills. Students valued learning with authentic examples or big-picture contexts, like climate change or systems thinking. An emergent theme was improvements in inclusive chemistry education. This embracing of technology alongside traditional methods, and the rise of interdisciplinary approaches and inclusivity, equips graduates with the skills necessary for successful careers in chemistry.</p>","PeriodicalId":43,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chemical Education","volume":"102 5","pages":"1960–1971 1960–1971"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143933951","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An Inquiry-Based General Chemistry Laboratory: Preparing a Moisture Responsive Flexible Sensor","authors":"Li Jia*,&nbsp;Kaiguo Ma,&nbsp;Hao Zhao,&nbsp;Weihong Li* and Jie Zheng*,&nbsp;","doi":"10.1021/acs.jchemed.5c0006510.1021/acs.jchemed.5c00065","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.5c00065https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.5c00065","url":null,"abstract":"<p >Flexible sensors have gained increasing interest in diversified fields in modern society. The selection of suitable active materials plays an important role in dominating the performance of sensors. Recently, the strategy of solid-phase molecular self-assembly (SPMSA) has been used to make functional materials by a simple and reproducible method. Herein, we introduce the latest research results in a supramolecular film sensor with humidity responsiveness into the general chemistry laboratory for the first-year undergraduate. In this experiment, the commercially available reagents N,N,N-Trimethyl-1-dodecanaminium bromide (DTAB) and sodium polystyrenesulfonate (PSS) have been used to make a moisture responsive flexible sensor by doping with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) by a simple procedure at room temperature. Students employ several key characterization techniques to evaluate the sensor’s properties, including Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) for structural analysis, a tension machine for mechanical flexibility testing, and an electrochemical workstation for evaluating humidity-responsive performance. In the 5-week laboratory experience, students worked in teams to carry out tasks including experimental synthesis, structural and performance characterization of the film sensor, data analysis, and presenting the results. This inquiry-based project provides students with experience similar to those in real research for first-year undergraduate students, which effectively stimulates their interest and enhances their competencies in scientific research. Additionally, the techniques and concepts involved in this experiment are highly relevant to materials science, polymer chemistry, and engineering courses. Thus, this experiment is also well-suited for students in these advanced fields, where a deeper understanding of intermolecular interactions and material properties is essential.</p>","PeriodicalId":43,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chemical Education","volume":"102 5","pages":"2120–2128 2120–2128"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143933994","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exploring the Preference for Tertiary Substrates in E2 Reactions: Beyond Transition State Stability","authors":"Matheus P. Freitas*,&nbsp;","doi":"10.1021/acs.jchemed.5c0010210.1021/acs.jchemed.5c00102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.5c00102https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.5c00102","url":null,"abstract":"<p >The fundamental bimolecular elimination (E2) reactions are often taught with the assumption that more substituted alkenes are favored due to the stability of the alkene-like transition state. However, this quantum-chemical study shows that in a model E2 reaction involving 2-bromo-2-methylpropane and 1-bromo-2-methylpropane, both yielding 2-methylpropene, the tertiary substrate does not kinetically favor the reaction. The faster reaction with 2-bromo-2-methylpropane is instead attributed to a probability factor, given the greater number of antiperiplanar β-hydrogens. When this factor is absent, as in the case of 2-bromobutane, the Saytzeff product dominates, consistent with the stability of more substituted alkene-like transition states. Therefore, textbooks and curricula should include this probabilistic effect as a key factor explaining the preference for the E2 reaction in the substrate order: primary &lt; secondary &lt; tertiary.</p>","PeriodicalId":43,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chemical Education","volume":"102 5","pages":"2177–2180 2177–2180"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://pubs.acs.org/doi/epdf/10.1021/acs.jchemed.5c00102","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143934159","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Pedagogical Tour of the Fourier Transform with Applications to NMR and IR Spectroscopy","authors":"Anthony J. Dominic III*,&nbsp;Nicholas L. Cipolla*,&nbsp;William C. Pfalzgraff*,&nbsp;Jeffrey A. Jankowski*,&nbsp;Rebecca J. Rapf* and Andrés Montoya-Castillo*,&nbsp;","doi":"10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c0143910.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01439","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01439https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01439","url":null,"abstract":"<p >The Fourier Transform (FT) is a fundamental tool that permeates modern science and technology. While chemistry undergraduates encounter the FT as early as the second year, their courses often only mention it in passing because computers frequently perform it automatically behind the scenes. Although this automation enables students to focus on ‘the chemistry’, students miss out on an opportunity to understand and use one of the most powerful tools in the scientific arsenal capable of revealing how time-dependent signals encode chemical structure. Although many educational resources introduce chemists to the FT, they often require familiarity with sophisticated mathematical and computational concepts. Here, we present a series of three self-contained, Python-based laboratory activities designed for undergraduates to understand the FT and apply it to analyze audio signals, an infrared (IR) spectroscopy interferogram, and a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) free induction decay (FID). In these activities, students observe how the FT reveals and quantifies the contribution of each frequency present in a temporal signal and how decay time scales dictate signal broadening. Our activities empower students with the tools to transform their own temporal data sets (e.g., FID) to a frequency spectrum. To ensure accessibility of the activities and lower the barrier to implementation, we utilize Google Colab’s open-source, cloud-based platform to run Jupyter notebooks. We also offer a prelaboratory activity that introduces students to the basics of Python and the Colab platform and reviews the math and programming skills needed to complete the lab activities. These lab activities help students build a qualitative, quantitative, and practical understanding of the FT.</p>","PeriodicalId":43,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chemical Education","volume":"102 5","pages":"1972–1980 1972–1980"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143934157","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Soxhlet Extraction and Analysis of Spices through Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectroscopy","authors":"Ashton Cromwell,&nbsp;Dung Schmick,&nbsp;Hailey Lynch and Anuradha Liyana Pathiranage*,&nbsp;","doi":"10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c0122710.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01227","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01227https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01227","url":null,"abstract":"<p >Presented is a laboratory experiment involving the isolation and analysis of compounds in spice samples as a tool for teaching two important experimental techniques, gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and Soxhlet extraction, to organic chemistry students. Compounds were extracted from nine common spices using Soxhlet extraction with ethanol. Students identified various compounds in these spice samples using GC-MS. GC peaks were analyzed using MS spectra, aided by both internal and external MS libraries, to identify the possible compounds present. This experiment was developed to present complex content to students through a relatable and engaging topic. Using compounds derived from spices as analytes could be of interest to anyone who loves to cook or who is interested in the compounds that determine a spice’s medicinal and physical properties. The experiment explored the importance of organic compounds in daily life, demonstrated one of the primary methods for natural product extraction, and showcased the practical application of GC-MS in compound identification.</p>","PeriodicalId":43,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chemical Education","volume":"102 5","pages":"2042–2048 2042–2048"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143934197","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}