Core Practicals

• Core Practicals aim to provide practical chemistry understanding, reinforcing theoretical concepts studied in the ‘Formulae, Equations and Amounts of Substances’ module.
• Familiarity with a selection of key experiments and procedures is essential. These may involve titrations, measuring gas volumes, and determining empirical formulas.
• Practice the titration process, ensuring understanding of the end point, colour changes, and the method to calculate concentrations.
• Be conversant with the process of preparing a standard solution. This includes safely handling and accurately measuring the solute and solvent, and knowing the importance of fully dissolving the solute.
• In quantitative chemistry applications, understand how to determine an empirical formula from experimental data. Practice this with exercises such as reacting magnesium with oxygen.
• Know the steps involved in measuring gas volumes using water displacement, ensuring understanding of potential errors due to water vapour and how to correct for them.
• Conduct experiments related to enthalpy changes. This includes enthalpy of solution, neutralisation, and combustion. Understand how to calculate enthalpy change with the collected data.
• Practice calculations involved in Ideal Gas Law and understand the assumptions underlying this law. Explore the practical applications of this law.
• Familiarize with the process of moles and stoicheiometry calculation. This includes using the balanced chemical equation, the molar masses of reactants and products, and conservation of mass.
• Understand the concept and applications of the Avogadro’s law. This includes its relation with volume of gases and stoicheiometry.
• Adopt safe laboratory practises at all times, including appropriate use of personal protective equipment and handling of chemicals.
• Regularly write lab reports, including observations, data, conclusion, and source of errors, to improve your descriptive and analysis skills.