A level Chemistry

OIL RIG These two words you are undoubtable familiar with since GCSE chemistry - or at least I would hope so! OIL RIG refers to oxidation and reduction, you may ask: what are these two terms? Well the definitions are simple: Oxidation refers to the loss of electrons or the gaining of oxygen. Reduction is the polar opposite as it refers to the gain of electrons and the loss of oxygen. Oxidation and reduction are like two of your friends who really like each other and they never stop being together (weird analogy I know) as they always go hand in hand, somewhat of a package deal: you buy one, you get one free! When there is a reaction where reduction takes place, oxidation won't be far behind and vice versa, this is because when reduction occurs oxidation must take place also. It like that cringe quote: 'every action has an equal and opposite reaction.' which makes sense because they do the opposite of each other. When reduction and oxidation occurs in a reaction the

Intermolecular forces So intermolecular forces what are they all about?! In plain English, intermolecular forces are the smaller forces in a bigger equation and are simply forces between molecules. You can get a range of different bonds, the main ones we know are ionic and covalent bonds which are very strong when compared to these little intermolecular forces in between molecules. There are three different intermolecular forces you deal with at A level and trust me these little guys will become the bane of your life. These three types of bonds are known as hydrogen bonding, permanent dipoles and temporary dipoles. Hydrogen bonding Hydrogen bonding is the strongest type of intermolecular force and occurs in molecules containing a O-H, N-H or F-H bonds, this is due to oxygen, nitrogen and fluorine being the most electronegative elements which then creates something known as a dipole. These dipoles exist as delta negative and delta positive and refers the the distribution of e

 So... next set of never ending calculations is.... the titration calculation. Fun times right? Lets get this on the road! What is a titration? Simply put it is the neutralization of an acid by an alkali or vice versa to an immensely accurate scale - not flawless though mind, just saying (problematic I know but it is 2020!).  Be careful when measuring values in the burette, it needs to be read from the meniscus - this is the dip of the solution in the burette. Also just to annoy you that little bit more, you have to record and record and record and record and record and record and record.... oh sorry lost myself there! (it is true though!) ... until you get two results that are concordant with one another (within 0.1 of each other). So lets get down to the ever so enjoyable maths... Ca(OH)₂ + HNO₃ ---> Ca(NO₃)₂ + H₂O So here we have our lovely little equation. Now I recommend simply balancing this out - having issues? check this out - as balancing this out as soon as possibl

All those terms you might want to know, just for reference that is. Amount of substance -The means of counting atoms within a mole. Anhydrous -Lacking water molecules. Atomic number -The number of protons in an atom. Atomic orbitals -A region within an atom that can hold up to two electrons with opposite spins. Avogadro constant -The number of atoms per mole of the carbon 12 isotope (6.02x10 to the power of 23 mol -1) Compound -A substance formed from two or more chemically bonded elements. Dative bond -A shared pair of electrons which have been provided by one of the bonding atoms. Electronegativity -A measure of the attraction of a bonded atom for the pair of electrons in a covalent bond. Electron shielding -The repulsion between electrons in different inner shells. Empirical formula -Whole number ratio of atoms of each element in a molecule. First ionisation energy -The energy required to remove one electron from the outer shell of an element. Hydrogen bond -A strong di

Now back to basics I know but its surprising how the simple stuff can catch you out! So lets get this party started: Electrons - have a negative charge and is equal to that of protons Protons - have positive charges and can be found as the smaller number under an element. Neutrons - has a neutral charge and is found out by taking the atomic mass (smaller number) away from the relative atomic mass (the bigger number) Some atoms are quite happy to stay on their tod without any need of bonding, these are known as 'noble gases'. These elements make up the group 0/8 on the periodic table and this purely means their outer shell is full of electrons so there is no need for any actual bonding to occur. Being that their outer shell is full they are extremely stable elements and almost never react because of this. However, as the group number decreases the less stable an element is, making group 1 very unstable. There are 3 types of bonding and as you have probably guessed they a

Previously in gas equations we learnt that - n=V/24000. There is one other side to this equation for when those hateful questions come up! As always we will run through this simply and easily but first we need to start off with the symbols that make up this equation: n =  as always is mol T = Temperature measured in K P = Pressure measured in KPa V = Gas volume measured in dm cubed R = The gas constant Now I understand that this may seem like a lot of info but let break this down: STP means the standard temperature and pressure which results in-      - Standard temperature being 298K     - Standard pressure being 100KPa As usual we don't question and in the legendry words of the Beatles 'Let it be' ... I should probably stop with the jokes! The other thing that is quite important that you know is the gas constant which is 8.314mol -1 K -1 and once again keep the previous sentence in mind! The actual equation for this is: PV = R x nT or Pressure x gas vo