General Chemistry

The basics of chemistry. The structure of the materials. Mixtures and compounds. The concept of equilibra. Conservation principles. The concept of mol. Chemical changes and chemical equations. Stochiometry. Oxiadation and reduction, redox processes. The oxidation number, and its use in balancing chemical equations.                                                      6 hours

Characterization of the gasous states. Macroscopic description and microscopic understanding. Laws governing the gaseous state, boundary conditions, the ideal gas law. Characterization of the liquid and solid states. Lattice types. Phase diagram of pure materials. Laws for phase equlibra. Vapour tension. The phenomena of boiling and melting. Non-equlibrium processes. Laws of mixtures of materials. Mixtures of gases, liquids and solids. Phase diagrams of binary mixtures. Distillation, rectification, crystallization as purification processes. Freezing point depression, boiling point elevation, laws of the osmotic pressure. Determination of the molecular weigth. Limitations.   6 hours

The basics of the thermodynamics:

Extensive and intensive measures. The concept of energy. Chemical equlibra and its relation to the energy. Thermochemistry, Heat. Definitions: heat of formation, heat of combustion, reaction energy. Hess’s law. Chemical systems and chemical equlibria. Equlibrium constant. Gaseous equlibria, Equlibria in the liquid phase. Heterogenous equlibria. Equlibria of electrolytes. The concept of pH. pH equlibria. Weak acids and bases, acidity and basicity strength. Hydrolyzing salts of weak acids and bases. Water as a specific case. Buffer solutions. Titration of weak acids. Acid-base indicators. The Solubility product constant. Coupled equlibria.     16 hours

 Acid base theories. Acid-base theory of Arrhenius, wateric solutions. The Bronsted acid base theory. Acidity as a relative measure, weak and strong acids. The Lewis acid-base theory, relation to complex formation and to the Bronsted theory, superacids.          2 hours

Basics of electrochemistry. Electric energy: potential and charge. Faraday’s law, the conservation of the charge. Conductivity. The additivity of the specific conductivities in dilute solutions. The electrode potential, concept, measurement, the hydrogen electrode, relatio to pH. Nernst’s equation. The relation of the elecrode potential to the redox properties. Galvanic cells, batteries.                                 12 hours.

The kinetics of chemical reactions. Definitions: reaction rate, rate constant, concentration dependence. Reaction order and molecularity. Reaction mechanisms. Activation barrier and the law of Arrhenius. The principle of catalysis. Remarks on the thermodynamics and kinetics.    2 hours.

The structure of matter.              

The experimental reasults leading to the quantum mechanics, quantized physical properties (atomic spectra, photoelectric effect, Rutherford’s experiment). The electronic structure of the hydrogen atom: orbitals, energies, electron density, (quantum numbers). Heavier atoms. The Aufbau principle, occupation rules (Hund’s rule, Pauli principle, electron spin). Realtion to the periodic system, ionization energy, electron affinity, electronegativity. The concept of the covalent bonding, qualitative understanding by quantum mechanics. Polarized covalent and ionic bonding, dative bond formation. Bonding and formation of hydrides, valence rules (octet rule) in the periodic table. Molecular structure and simple models (the concept of hybridization and the VSEPR model). Electronic structure of diatomic molecules, the case of oxygen. The concept of electron delocalization.                                                           12 h