Essential Ideas in Chemistry
Essential Ideas in Chemistry
Essential Ideas in Chemistry
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1.1. Chemistry in Context
• Throughout history, people have tried to convert matter into more useful
forms.
• People carved wood into statues and toys without changing the substance
itself.
• But as our knowledge increased, humans began to change the composition
of the substances as well
clay was converted into pottery,
hides were cured to make garments,
copper ores were transformed into copper tools and weapons, and
grain was made into bread
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• Humans began to practice chemistry when they learned to control fire and
use it to cook, make pottery, and smelt metals.
• Subsequently, they began to separate and use specific components of
matter.
• A variety of drugs such as aloe, myrrh, and opium were isolated from
plants.
• Dyes, such as indigo and Tyrian purple, were extracted from plant and
animal matter.
• Metals were combined to form alloys for example, copper and tin were
mixed together to make bronze and more elaborate smelting techniques
produced iron. 3
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• Alkalis were extracted from ashes, and soaps were prepared by
combining these alkalis with fats.
• Alcohol was produced by fermentation and purified by distillation.
• The isolation of drugs from natural sources, metallurgy, and the dye
industry.
• Today, chemistry continues to deepen our understanding and improve our
ability to harness and control the behavior of matter.
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1.1.1. Chemistry as the Central Science
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Fig1.1: Shows just some of the interrelationships between chemistry and other fields.
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• Digesting and assimilating food, synthesizing polymers that are used to
make clothing, containers, cookware, and credit cards, and refining crude
oil into gasoline and other products are just a few examples.
• Chemistry will discover many different examples of changes in the
composition and structure of matter, how to classify these changes, how
they occurred and the principles and laws involved.
• Learning chemistry, the study of the composition, properties, and
interactions of matter.
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1.1.2. The Scientific Method
• Chemistry is a science based on observation and experimentation.
• Doing chemistry involves attempting to answer questions and explain
observations in terms of the laws and theories of chemistry, using
accepted procedures by the scientific community.
• No single route to answering a question or explaining an observation, but
there is an aspect common to every approach:
• Some routes involve a hypothesis, a tentative explanation of observations
that acts as a guide for gathering and checking information.
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• A hypothesis is tested by experimentation, calculation, and/or comparison
with the experiments of others and then refined as needed.
• The path of discovery that leads from question and observation to law or
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1.1.3. The Domains of Chemistry
• Chemists study and describe the behavior of matter and energy in three
different domains: macroscopic, microscopic, and symbolic.
The macroscopic domain
It is the realm of everyday things that are large enough to be sensed
directly by human sight or touch.
It includes everyday and laboratory chemistry, where we observe and
measure physical and chemical properties such as density, solubility, and
flammability.
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The microscopic domain
However, most of the subjects are too small to be seen even with the
most advanced microscopes and may only be pictured in the mind.
One of the challenges for learning chemistry is identifying that the same
symbols can represent different things in the macroscopic and
microscopic domains,
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• To understand the three domains is via the essential and ubiquitous
substance of water.
• That water is a liquid at moderate temperatures will freeze to form a solid
at lower temperatures, and boil to form a gas at higher temperatures
(Fig.1.3) are macroscopic observations.
• But some properties of water fall into the microscopic domain, what
cannot be observed with the naked eye.
• The description of water as comprising two hydrogen atoms and one
oxygen atom, and the explanation of freezing and boiling in terms of
attractions between these molecules, is within the microscopic arena.
• The formula H2O, which can describe water at either the macroscopic or
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microscopic levels, is an example of the symbolic domain.
Fig. 1.3: (a) Moisture in the air, icebergs, and the ocean represent water in the macroscopic domain.
(b) At the molecular level (microscopic domain), gas molecules are far apart and disorganized,
solid water molecules are close together and organized, and liquid molecules are close together and
disorganized.(c) The formula H2O symbolizes water, and (g), (s), and (l) symbolize its phases.
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1.2. State and Classification of Matter
1.2.1. State of Matter
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Fig. 1.5: A plasma torch can be used to cut metal.
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• Some samples of matter appear to have properties of solids, liquids,
and/or gases at the same time.
• This can occur when the sample is composed of many small pieces.
• For example, Clouds appear to behave somewhat like gases, but they are
actually mixtures of air (gas) and tiny particles of water (liquid or solid).
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• The law of conservation of matter summarizes about matter:
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• The original substances (lead, lead oxide, and sulfuric acid), which are
capable of producing electricity, are changed into other substances (lead
sulfate and water) that do not produce electricity, with no change in the
actual amount of matter.
Fig. 1.6: (a) The mass of beer precursor materials is the same as the mass of beer produced:
Sugar has become alcohol and carbon dioxide.
(b) The mass of the Pb, PbO2, and H2SO4 consumed by the production of electricity is exactly
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• Although this conservation law holds true for all conversions of matter,
convincing examples are few and far between because, outside of the
controlled conditions in a laboratory, we seldom collect all of the
material that is produced during a particular conversion.
• For example, when you eat, digest, and assimilate food, all of the matter
in the original food is preserved.
• But because some of the matter is incorporated into your body, and much
is excreted as various types of waste, it is challenging to verify by
measurement.
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1.2.2. Classification of Matter
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A pure substance:
has a constant composition.
Any sample of sucrose also has the same physical properties, such as mpt,
Elements:
Types of pure substance
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Compounds:
The type of pure substances
Can be broken down by chemical changes to produce either elements
or other compounds, or both.
Example: Mercury (II) oxide can be broken down by heat into the
elements mercury and oxygen.
: the compound sucrose is broken down into the element
carbon and the compound water.
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Cont---
Mixture:
Composed of two or more types of matter,
Can be present in varying amounts can be separated by physical
changes, such as evaporation,
Heterogeneous:
A mixture with a composition that varies from point to point
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Cont---
Homogeneous:
Also called a solution,
A uniform composition and appears visually the same throughout.
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1.3. Physical and Chemical Properties
• The characteristics that distinguish one substance from another are called
properties.
• A physical property is a characteristic of matter that is not associated
with a change in its chemical composition.
Examples: density, color, hardness, melting and boiling points, and
electrical conductivity.
• Some physical properties, such as density and color, may be observed
without changing the physical state of the matter.
• Other physical properties, such as the melting temperature of iron or the
freezing temperature of water, can only be observed as matter undergoes
a physical change. 28
Cont---
• A physical change is a change in the state or properties of matter without
any accompanying change in the chemical identities of the substances
contained in the matter.
Example: wax melts, when sugar dissolves in coffee, and when steam
condenses into liquid water
: magnetizing and demagnetizing metals (as is done with
common antitheft security tags) and grinding solids into powders
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Fig. 1.9:(a) Wax undergoes a physical change when solid wax is heated and forms
liquid wax. (b) Steam condensing inside a cooking pot is a physical change, as
water vapor is changed into liquid water.
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• The change of one type of matter into another type (or the inability to
change) is a chemical property.
Examples: flammability, toxicity, acidity, and many other types of reactivity.
Iron, for example, combines with oxygen in the presence of water to form
rust; chromium does not oxidize.
• Nitroglycerin is very dangerous because it explodes easily; neon poses
almost no hazard because it is very un reactive.
Fig1.10,(a), is a photo of metal machinery that is
now mostly covered with reddish orange rust iron.
Example:
The formation of rust is a chemical change because rust is a different
kind of matter than the iron, oxygen, and water present before the rust
formed.
The explosion of nitroglycerin is a chemical change because the gases
produced are very different kinds of matter from the original substance.
Reaction copper with nitric acid hat are performed in a lab, all forms of
combustion (burning), and food being cooked, digested, or rotting.
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Fig1.11: (a) Cu and HNO3 undergo a chemical change to form CU (NO3) and brown, NO2(g).
(b) During the combustion of a match, cellulose in the match and O 2 from the air
• While the number and unit are explicitly represented when a quantity is
written,
• The uncertainty is an aspect of the measurement result that is more
implicitly represented. 35
Cont---
• The number in the measurement can be represented in different ways
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• Everyday measurement units are often defined as fractions or multiples
of other units.
• Fractional or multiple SI units are named using a prefix and the name of
the base unit.
• For example, a length of 1000 meters is also called a kilometer because
the prefix kilo means “one
• thousand,” which in scientific notation is 103 (1 kilometer = 1000 m =
103 m).
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Common Unit Prefixes
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1.5.1. SI Base Units
• Length-
• Mass
• The standard unit of mass in the SI system is the kilogram (kg).
• The gram (g) is exactly equal to 1/1000 of the mass of the kilogram (10−3
kg). 39
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• Temperature
• is an intensive property.
• The SI unit of temperature is the kelvin (K).
• The degree Celsius (°C) is also allowed in the SI system, with both the
word “degree” and the degree symbol used for Celsius measurements.
• Celsius degrees are the same magnitude as those of kelvin, but the two
scales place their zeros in different places.
• Water freezes at 273.15 K (0°C) and boils at 373.15 K (100 °C) by
definition, and normal human body temperature is approximately 310 K
(37°C).
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Cont---
• Time
The SI base unit of time is the second (s).
Small and large time intervals can be expressed with
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1.5.2. Derived SI Units
For example, we can use the base unit of length to define a unit of volume,
and the base units of mass and length to define a unit of density.
Volume
• Volume is the measure of the amount of space occupied by an object.
• The standard SI unit of volume is defined by the base unit of length.
• The standard volume is a cubic meter (m3), a cube with an edge length of
exactly one meter.
• A cubic centimeter (cm3) is the volume of
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• Example 1.1
What is the density of lead if a cube of lead has an edge length of 2.00 cm
and a mass of 90.7 g?
Solution
• The density of a substance can be calculated by dividing its mass by its
volume.
• The volume of a cube is calculated by cubing the edge length.
• Volume of lead cube=2.00 cm×2.00 cm × 2.00 cm=8.00 cm
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1.6. Measurement Uncertainty(improbability)
• Counting is the only type of measurement that is free from uncertainty,
provided the number of objects being counted does not change while the
counting process is underway.
• The result of such a counting measurement is an example of an exact
number.
• By counting the eggs in a carton, one can determine exactly how many
eggs the carton contains.
• By definition, 1 ft is exactly 12 in, 1 in is exactly 2.54 cm, and 1 g is
exactly 0.001 kg.
• Quantities derived from measurements other than counting, however, are
uncertain to varying extents due to practical limitations of the
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measurement process used.
1.6.1. Significant Figures in Measurement
• To measure the volume of liquid in a graduated cylinder, you should make a
reading at the bottom of the meniscus, the lowest point on the curved surface of
the liquid.
The bottom of the meniscus in this case clearly lies
between the 21 and 22 markings as shown in
fig.1.15 The meniscus appears to be a bit closer to
the 22 mL mark than to the 21mL mark, and so a
reasonable estimate of the liquid’s volume would
be 21.6 mL.
Fig. 1.15: shows the measure volume of
In the number 21.6,then, the digits 2 and 1 are
liquid in this graduated cylinder
certain, but the 6 is an estimate.
All of the digits in a measurement, including the
uncertain last digit, are26 called significant figures
or significant digits. 46
1.6.3. Accuracy and Precision
• Measurements are said to Scientists make repeated measurements of a
quantity to ensure the quality of their findings and to evaluate both the
precision and the accuracy of their results.
• Measurements are said to be precise if they values agree with each other
• A measurement is considered accurate if accurate values agree with a
true value.
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1.7. Conversion Factors and Dimensional Analysis
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Conversion of Temperature Units
• Temperature to refer to the hotness or coldness of a substance.
• The mercury or alcohol in a common glass thermometer changes its
volume as the temperature changes,
• Two of the most commonly used are the freezing and boiling temperature
of water at a specified atmospheric pressure.
• On the Fahrenheit scale, the freezing point of water is defined as 32°F and
the boiling temperature as 212°F.
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• Equation converting from Fahrenheit to Celsius:
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Example 1.9
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Example 1.10
Conversion from Fahrenheit
• Baking a ready-made pizza calls for an oven temperature of 450 °F. If you
are in Europe, and your oven thermometer uses the Celsius scale, what is
the setting? What is the kelvin temperature?
Solution
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