Chem 101 Lab
Week #13
The Previous Quiz with Answers
The Group Part
The Individual Part
Quiz
Why was Einstein so proud of his heat capacity equation?*
Introduction to Reactions in Organic Chemistry
As mentioned before, organic chemistry is where most of today's "action" is - the making of plastics, pharmaceuticals, paints, body-replacement parts, agronomy, and on and on and on. So far you have only glimpsed organic chemistry in this course when you looked at the enzyme catalase, and when you used three alcohols (MeOH, EtOH, and nPrOH). But we have not actually done any chemistry on the organic molecules themselves. Today we shall with, hopefully, some pleasant unexpected results.
This lab wiil be done in groups of ones or twos.
The Reaction of Acetic Anhydride with Various Alcohols
* For any chemical reaction to occur the two moieties must approach each other with sufficient momentum to overcome Eact. Of course mass plays a role. The heavier a particle is, that harder it will hit. But that, interestingly, is less than half the story. Another part of the momentum story is velocity Heat is the velocity of the moieties, and the velocity's contribution towards momentum is to the second power (square), while mass is only to the first power. This is why temperature is so important in chemical reactions. We'll discuss this more fully in class.