A Polar World?

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Assalamu Alaikum,

Often when hearing the term ‘polar’ the arctic comes to mind. Polar bears, anyone?

***To really get to the point of the post, get past after the two breaks***

But polarity in chemistry refers to a molecule’s electron distribution and intermolecular forces between molecules of the same type. So let’s use water—

Water is H2O. (Really, Faith786?)

What I learned in General Chemistry II Lab

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Assalamu Alaikum,

This warranted its own post just because I felt like I took two different classes with lab and lecture (probably because I had a different professor for lab than for lecture). Looking back at it, this semester in lab was in some ways even more messed up than last semester although last semester I broke more things.

Gen Chem Lab Part II: Revenge of the Volumetric Flasks

—Apparently wearing a head scarf can be a safety hazard. Actually, I am the safety hazard.

—I believe when synthesizing alum crystals not to use steroids. I believe in 100% organic alum crystals!

(In this lab, my professor put extra crystals in people’s beakers to get the alum to crystallize, but I waited an hour for mine in an ice bath beaker because I believed in them!)

—My scarf and I learned something about each other—my sanity in lab is directly correlated with the state of my head scarf so I always have to fix it before lab.

Lies My Chemistry Teacher Told Me: Ka vs. Ksp

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Assalamu Alaikum,

(Warning: heavy chemistry content!)

Today’s chemistry dilemma, Ka vs. Ksp (Kb is being neglected because everyone likes Ka more than Kb–I am feeling chemistry politically incorrect at the moment.)

Ka means the ratio of a chemical reaction of an acid at equilibrium. The ratio is the product of the concentrations of products (right side) divided by the product of the concentrations of the reactants (left side). So basically, if you have an acid reacting with water like:

HF + H2O <–> H3O+ + F-

The Ka is ([H3O+][F-])/([HF]). Liquid water is never written in because numbers get huge and slightly messed up.