Chemistry

Sometimes errors appear in textbooks and are propagated like memes. It is unfortunately common for textbook writers to assume that previous texts are correct and that the facts no longer need to be checked. In the case of the combustion of magnesium ribbon in air, the “fact” that a mixture of magnesium oxide and magnesium nitride is formed has become “common knowledge” and appears never to be questioned.

Health Canada issued an advisory this past summer, suggesting that exposure to boron substances be reduced as much as possible from all sources. 

Students often struggle with the difference between a solution that is buffered and one that is not.

ER doctor: We want a CT scan. You will be receiving an intravenous CT contrast agent.

Patient: What is the CT contrast agent?

ER doctor: Iohexol.

In the previous parts of this series, we presented an overview of what nanoparticles are and what they can do. We emphasized the importance of surface atoms as the only ones that can facilitate catalytic reactions.

In Part 1 of this series we described nanoparticles, what they are, how they are made and how they compare to other forms of metal. We also described how metal surfaces serve as catalysts facilitating reactions such as the hydrogenation of an alkene. 

As a science teacher, if you were asked for an example of a catalyst, your car’s catalytic converter may come to mind. Most informed citizens would do the same. What may come as a surprise is that catalytic converters have dramatically changed in the past decade and now use only a small fraction of the precious metals that older models used.

In Canada, one challenge is to excite indigenous peoples about science, and chemistry in particular. For many years, with a series of student colleagues, we have been taking a Chemistry Show to schools in remote communities in western and central Newfoundland, coastal Québec, Labrador and even Nunavut (see References).

Fentanyl is a synthetic, lipophilic phenylpiperidine derivative with both analgesic (painkiller) and anesthetic (causes reversible loss of consciousness) properties.....

The use of natural gas (methane) and propane as fuel gases exemplifies numerous areas of general science and general chemistry: intermolecular forces, states of matter and changes of state; heats of vaporization; liquid–vapour equilibrium and vapour pressure; stoichiometry and heats of combustion; gas laws; carbon dioxide emissions and climate change.