Josh Walker e-Portfolio

Thermodynamics was one of my most difficult chemistry classes because it was a combination of physics, calculus, and chemistry. It was with one of my favorite professors, Dr. Topham, so I did end up enjoying it though. It was very math heavy and the material that was taught in class was mostly derivations of formulas, but not actually applying the formulas. The homework was challenging because we put the formulas to use without seeing how they are used. I spent a lot of time in Dr. Topham’s office for help with the homework like many of my other fellow classmates. He was always willing to help which made the class a little less stressful, but it still was. The material itself was interesting because we could see the relationship between the math and the concept. There was no lab for this class, but I wanted to see more of the relationship between the formulas and the physical chemistry, so I enhanced the class.

Dr. Topham and I worked together to create a lab for this class so I could get a better understanding of how the material learned in class related to an experimental application and because a lab would be added to the class in the future. We determined the partial molar volume of an aqueous sodium chloride solution which is the volume that is changed when water is added to a large volume of solution. The interaction between water molecules and the sodium chloride molecules is tightly packed and it ends up losing volume. This is not only done with an aqueous sodium chloride solution though. If I were to add 18 mL of water to 100,000 mL solution of ethanol and water, the final volume would be 100,016 mL, and not 100,018 mL. It was very interesting to learn and comprehend that because it just doesn’t seem to make sense, but thermodynamics isn’t wrong.