Dr. Ione's lab

Dr. Ione's lab is quiet, tidy and labelled twice: the window has two stickers that say WINDOW, the fume hood has two that say HOOD, and every jar on the shelf carries two labels. A flask is bubbling away in the hood. The Chemistry department's calculators are on the bench, the board, the counter and in the hood.

Most of the arithmetic in a chemistry lab is counting particles by weighing them. The mole links mass to amount through molar mass, and from there come concentrations and dilutions, how much product a reaction should give and how much it did, what a titration says about an unknown, how a buffer holds its pH, how a gas responds to pressure and temperature, and how quickly a first-order reaction runs down.

pH deserves the double label: it is logarithmic, so one pH unit is a tenfold change in hydrogen-ion concentration.

“One pH unit is a tenfold change in hydrogen-ion concentration.” — Dr. Ione

In this office

• Molarity / Dilution: How much stock solution and water to combine for a target diluted concentration
• Stoichiometry: Find the limiting reagent and product yield from a balanced equation
• pH Calculator: pH and pOH of a strong acid or base solution
• Ideal Gas Law: Solve PV = nRT for whichever of pressure, volume, moles, or temperature is left blank
• Percent Yield: Compare an actual reaction yield against the theoretical maximum
• Molar Mass & Solution Prep: How many grams of a compound to weigh out for a target concentration and volume
• Titration: Volume of base (or acid) needed to reach the equivalence point
• Buffer Solution: pH of a buffer from the Henderson-Hasselbalch equation
• Reaction Half-Life: Half-life and remaining concentration for a first-order reaction

Project guides

• Prepare a Lab Solution from Scratch: Weigh out a compound to make a concentrated stock, then dilute it down (in one stage or two) to the working concentration you actually need.

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