GENERAL AND INORGANIC CHEMISTRY
Academic year and teacher
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- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2022/2023
- Teacher
- SIMONE MELONI
- Credits
- 6
- Didactic period
- Primo Semestre
- SSD
- CHIM/03
Training objectives
- The General and Inorganic Chemistry course aims at providing students with the basic concepts needed to properly face the following courses in Organic Chemistry and Analytical Chemistry.
The student will acquire knowledge on the atomic structure of matter, the electronic structure of atoms and molecules, the periodic properties of chemical elements and the corresponding table, the relation between valence electronic structure and chemical reactivity, chemical bonds, types of chemical reactions and the balancing of chemical equations, elements of thermochemistry, properties of gasses, liquids and solids, solutions and their properties, dilution of solutions, the chemical equilibrium, acid-base reactions.
At the end of this course, students will be able to plan experiments at a macroscopic level, to think to chemical systems in terms of their microscopic nature, use a suitable symbolic language to represent chemical reactions and results, namely: she/he will be able to recognize and represent the structure of the most common inorganic molecules, to foresee their properties, to balance chemical reactions, and to compute the concentration of species at the chemical equilibrium. Prerequisites
- A basic knowledge of mathematics and informatics is required: solution of equations, knowledge of some fundamental function and their graphic representation (power, logarithms and exponential functions). The student is expected to be able to deal with number of significant digits.
There are no formal prerequisites to fulfil to follow this course. Course programme
- The course consists of 48 contact hours (6 CFU) during which the following topics will be discussed:
Atomic structure and chemical elements; introduction to quantum mechanics; periodicity and the period table of elements; chemical bonds; main classes of molecular and ionic chemical compounds; molecular geometry by the VSEPR model; intermolecular forces; gasses, solids, liquids and solutions; colligative properties; stoichiometry; balancing of chemical equations; redox reactions; chemical equilibrium; introduction to electrochemistry; acids, bases, pH, tampon solutions. Didactic methods
- The course consists of 48 teaching of the theoretical concepts, which will be complemented by additional teaching to discuss practical examples or solution of exercises.
During the lectures, particular attention will be devoted to foster the ability of students to associate macroscopic observations to the microscopic nature of matter, and to describe the connection between the two through the chemical language. Learning assessment procedures
- The aim of the exam is to check that the student has achieved the learning objectives of the course. The exam could be either oral or written and will consist of a combination of theoretical questions and exercises. Typically, the student will be give about 10 questions, one per each topic of the course. I remark that a wrong answer to a question might imply a penalty in the marks. The student is allowed to use ONLY the periodic table of elements and a calculator.
All information about the exam are available in the mini-site of the General and Inorganic Chemistry course. Reference texts
- Students can use the textbook suggested by the teacher, or any other suitable textbook discussing the topics of the course, to prepare the exam. The teacher has not approved any other material, like lectures notes, etc..
Among the possible books, the following one is recommended:
• “Chimica - Un approccio molecolare”, Nivaldo J. Tro, EdiSES editor, new edition.
