CHEM2302: Physical Chemistry for Medicinal Chemistry & Life Sciences
Course Organizer: Dr Daren Caruana
Lecturers: Dr D J Caruana and Dr S Banks
Normal prerequisite: CHEM1301 (Basic Physical Chemistry) and CHEM1004 (Foundations of Chemistry),
or alternatively CHEM1603 (Chemistry for Biology students)
Units: 0.5
Course evaluation: 2011/12 (pdf)
Moodle page: http://moodle.ucl.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=4173
Aims
- An intermediate course designed to provide students who have a primary interest in Medicinal Chemistry and Biochemistry with a more detailed knowledge of Physical Chemistry applied to aqueous solutions.
- It can also form a bridge to more advanced chemistry courses.
Objectives
Successful students should
- understand the basic concepts of thermodynamics as applied to aqueous solutions, especially activities and the use of thermodynamic tables.
- be able to apply these to some simple systems including macromolecule solutions.
- understand important concepts in equilibrium electrochemistry and the application of these in chemical and biochemical situations.
- understand the concepts of mobility and conductance and the determination of transport properties in solution.
- understand basic spectroscopic concepts as applied to species in solution and be able to choose between various spectroscopic techniques for monitoring species in solution.
Course Structure
- Lectures: 22
- Workshops: 4
- Labs: Practical 5 afternoons
Assessment
- Exam: 70% (2 hours)
- Lab: 20%
- Coursework: 10%
Practical course organizer:
Dr Simon Banks
Recommended Texts
- Raymond Chang, "Physical Chemistry for the Chemical and Biological Sciences", 1st ed. University Science Books, 2000
Further Reading
- P W Atkins & J de Paula, "Physical Chemistry for the Life Sciences", 2006.
Course Outline
Thermodynamics and Chemical Equilibria, GT- 6 lectures
Revision of First Law. The Second Law of thermodynamics: Gibbs function and chemical potential. Equilibrium and Activity. Calculation of equilibrium constants from thermodynamic data; temperature dependence; use of tables. Colligative properties; estimation of molecular weights. Osmotic phenomena. Techniques for the determination of molar mass of macromolecules.
Properties of Electrolyte solutions and Conductivity, DJC - 5 lectures
Electrolyte solutions. Columbic interactions, deviations from ideal behaviour, non ideal solution. Chemical potential of species in solution. Debye-Huckel treatment of electrolyte solutions, Mean ionic activity coefficient, ion-ion and ion-solvent interactions. Derivation of limiting law. Molecular motion in applied electric fields: Ionic conductance and mobility; Equilibrium constants from conductance data; electrophoresis, electro-osmosis.
Electrochemical cells and redox reactions in biological systems, DJC - 6 lectures
Electrochemical reactions and cells; relation between current and reaction
rate; electrode potentials and Gibbs free energy of reactions. Electrochemical
driven processes in biological systems: What makes a mitochondria tick,
electron transport chain, membrane potentials in living cells, nerve impulses,
other membrane systems.
Molecular Spectroscopy and Structure, SB - 5 lectures
Introduction to electronic spectroscopy: absorption, fluorescence, phosphorescence and luminescence. Beer's Law: determination of concentrations; calculation of equilibrium constants. Excited states and excited state lifetime; deductions from spectra; energy transfer within and between molecules. Fluorescence and phosphorescence, applications including lasers. ORD, circular dichroism and FRET.
