This week, we began with Lewis structures and things such as hypervalency and electron deficiency. We also focused on bond order with a POGIL that taught us the principle that as bond order goes up, bond energy goes up. Also, as bond length goes up, bond energy goes down due to coulombs law and how far away the electron cloud is from the other nucleus of the other atom. We learned the basics of coulomb's law last year in ACIS 2 or Sustainable Green Chem, I can't remember which. Here is a good video on bond order.
After we learned the bond orders and bond lengths, we moved on to our lab. Before the lab, we had to use stoich again to calculate the amount of nitric acid we would need to complete the reaction. Stoich, once again proving to be a very useful tool in chemistry. Next, we tested to find the amount of copper in a brass screw by using nitric acid to dissolve the copper overnight, and then testing the absorbency of the nitric acid, water, and copper solution using a colorimeter. We used the same technique that we used from the previous absorbency lab to find the absorbency, then we stopped until next week to chart the data because we could not get computers.
After the lab, we did a POGIL on vespr models. Vespr models are models used to show the shape of a molecule's geometry. WE modeled the shapes with balloons because balloons, like electron clouds, are succeptable to outside pressure and will distort if there is a force acting on them. For example, if there is a balloon pushing up agaisnt another balloon, it will push away due to tension. The same is true for an orbital, but it will be pushed away by repelling negative charges rather than pressure.
My understanding of the material this week is probably not up to where I need it to be. Formal charges are still very confusing to me, I do not really know how to make a proper Lewis structure with the formal charges. Finding the formal charges is easy enough, though. This coming week I'll need to work on that a little more to iron out the wrinkles.
No comments:
Post a Comment