Improvement of Chemistry Laboratories with FTIR Spectroscopy

本课程旨在提高学生在化学、生物及专业预科课程中的实验室学习经验。在几个实验室（有机，仪器，物理，生物化学和研究）中使用傅里叶变换红外光谱仪（FTIR），学生可以发现各种化学物质的分子和定量信息。在发现氢键与物理状态的关系、氢键强度与电负性的关系等方面，多次创新实验提高了学生的学习效果；利用泛音谱测量旋转能和键离能的键距环境样品的定性和定量分析；并检查蛋白质和核酸二级结构的变化。FTIR还促进了一项正在进行的研究项目，以确定农药在环境基质中的持久性。通过在连续的实验室中使用FTIR，准备研究生学习的学生或环境工作人员为学术，工业，私人和政府实验室的研究和测试应用做好了充分的准备。

This project is designed to enhance the laboratory learning experience in courses populated by chemistry, biology, and pre- professional majors. Using the requested Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometer (FTIR) in several laboratories (organic, instrumental, physical, biochemistry, and research), students discover molecular and quantitative information about diverse chemical substances. Several innovative experiments to enhance student learning result in the discovery of the relationship between hydrogen bonding and physical state and hydrogen bond strength and electronegativity; measurement of bond distances from rotational energies and bond dissociation energies from overtone spectra; qualitative and quantitative analysis of environmental samples; and examination of changes in protein and nucleic acid secondary structure. The FTIR also facilitates an ongoing research project to determine pesticide persistence in environmental matrices. Through use of the FTIR in successive laboratories, students headed for graduate study or the environmental workforce are well prepared for the research and testing applications of academic, industrial, private, and governmental laboratories.