Courses

Principles of Chemistry CHEM101

Principles of Chemistry is an introductory chemistry course for science majors. Students are assumed to have taken chemistry courses in high school and to be familiar with basic aspects of atomic theory, balancing chemical equations, stoichiometry, and gas laws. CHEM101 covers the structure of the atom, periodic properties, chemical bonds, VB and MO theory, thermochemistry and the kinetic theory of gases.

The classes are accompanied by labs (four hours per week). The lab work is concerned with group properties of main group elements. Students prepare for the labs by reading about families in the periodic table and perform typical experiments involving these elements and their compounds.

The second part of Principles of chemistry is a continuation of the CHEM101. The main topics are intermolecular forces,  solutions, kinetics, equilibria, entropy and electrochemistry.

The labs deal with the first row of transition elements. Students prepare for the labs by reading about the chemistry of the transition elements and theoretical aspects like crystal and ligand field theory. Experiments include detection of the elements and creation of different oxidation states.

Food Chemistry CHEM430

Food Chemistry deals with taste and food selction, physical and chemical properties of proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids, changes during heating (caramelization, Maillard reactions)and other processing methods for food, cooking teqhniques for different meats, substitutes for sugars and fats like artificial sweeteners, margarine and olestra. We also discuss vitamins, diets, natural and non-natural toxins.

The course includes a 3-hour food lab with experiments like determining smoke points of fats, clarifying butter, caramelizing different sugars, heating artificial sweeteners, investigating sugar water mixtures, churning butter, making emulsions (mayonnaise), investigating the effect of pH on the Maiillard reaction, cooking at low T, and so on.

Applied Quantum Chemistry CHEM450

Applied quantum chemistry is an introduction to theortical methods suitable for many electron systems of interest in chemistry. The course starts with an introduction to the many-body problem and covers the most important approaches used by computational chemists, such as, Huckel theory, Hartree-Fock theory, post Hartree Fock methods (electron correlation), and density functional theory.

A second emphasis is on interpretation of theoretical results. Covered are population analyses, meaning of orbital energies, Koopmans' theorem, relationship with photoelectron spectroscopy.