Physical and Chemical Properties of Matter
- Textbook: General Chemistry - Principles and Modern Applications (11th edition) by R.H. Petrucci, F.G. Herring. J.D. Madura, and C. Bissonnette (published by Prentice Hall, 2016). The material covered in this course corresponds to chapters 1-11 of this text.
- Also offered online in certain terms.
CHEM 121 is an enriched version of CHEM 120 for all students in Chemistry and Biochemistry programs.
The first part of this course comprises a review of stoichiometry, with application to compounds, mixtures, solutions, gases, and chemical reactions, followed by an introduction to energy changes in chemical systems, including pressure-volume work, the First Law of Thermodynamics, and calorimetry. The second part of this course is concerned with explaining periodicity and trends in chemical reactivity in terms of the electronic structure of atoms and molecules. Topics covered in this part of the course include: quantum theory of the hydrogen atom; electron configurations in multi-electron atoms; ionic and covalent bonding; Lewis structures, valence shell electron repulsion theory and molecular geometry; quantum mechanical bonding theories, including valence bond theory and molecular orbital theory. Additional topics, as time permits, may include an introduction to electron-transfer reactions, including the assignment of oxidation states and the balancing of oxidation-reduction reactions.
Please remember that the Undergraduate Calendar is always the official source for all course descriptions.