00090 - Analytical Chemistry

Learning outcomes

The course aims at providing to the student the knowledge of analytical chemistry and chemiometryconcepts necessary to performquality controls on drugs and health products. In particular, the student will be able tocriticaly evaluate the obtained experimental results of quality controls, following the guidelines of theeuropean pharmacopoeia.

Course contents

Premise: students should have the basic knowledge of the following topics. General chemistry: chemical reactions, redox reactions, solutions, water as a solvent, electrolytes and non-electrolytes, solubility, solubilization process, activity and concentration, molarity, ways of expressing concentration of a solution, acids and bases, water autoprotolysis, acid and base dissociation constants, diprotic and polyprotic acids, pH of water solutions. Mathematics: logarithms, exponential numbers, second degree equations.

The program is divided in two blocks, called General Analytical Chemistry and Instrumental Analytical Chemistry

General Analytical Chemistry
Aims of analytical chemistry. How to perform a bibliographic search.
Statistical analysis of experimental data: errors in analytical chemistry, statistics of errors, tests of significance, error propagation, significant figures, absolute and relative analytical methods, calibration (external calibration, standard additions, internal calibration), least squares fitting, characteristics of an analytical procedure (accuracy, precision, specificity and selectivity, linearity range, detection and quantitation limits, robustness, ruggedness).
Analytical process: errors in analytical process, sampling of homogeneous and heterogeneous materials, sample treatment, reference materials.

Instrumental Analytical Chemistry

Equilibria in solution: chemistry of aqueous solutions, systematic approach to equilibrium problems, mass balance equation, charge balance equation, ion activity and concentration, the Debye-Huckel equation, solubility and solubility product, common ion effect, effects of secondary solution equilibria: hydrolysis and complexation, effect of pH, precipitation and separation of ions.

Titrations: calculus for titration analysis, acid-base conjugate couples, buffer solutions, theory of acid-base neutralization titrations, strong acid-strong base titration curves, weak acid-strong base titration curves, weak base-strong acid titration curve, species in a buffer solution as a function of pH, titration curves for complex acid-base systems (strong acid-weak acid and strong base-weak base), polyprotic acids and bases, species of a polyprotic acid as a function of pH, titration curves for polyprotic acids and bases, amphiprotic species, titration curves for amphiprotic species, applications of acid-base titrations, precipitation titrations, titration curves, argentometric titrations.

Electrochemistry: redox reactions, electrochemical cells, electrode potentials, junction potentials, reference electrodes, class 0, class 1 and class 2 electrodes, potentiometry, ion-selective electrodes, glass electrode for pH measurement, combined pH electrodes, measurement of pH, glass membrane ion-selective electrodes for other cations, other ion-selective electrodes based on solid-state, liquid ion exchange and polymer membranes, correlation between current intensity and cell potential.

Spectroscopic methods: electromagnetic radiation, molecular absorption spectra in gaseous and condensed state (electronic, vibrational and rotational contributions), absorbance and transmittance, Lambert-Beer law, deviations from the Lambert-Beer law, analysis of mixtures, error in spectrophotometric measurements, derivative spectra, spectrophotometers (light sources, filters and monochromators, sample cuvettes, detectors, instrument configurations), atomic spectrometry, atomic absorption and emission spectra, atomizers (flame atomizers, electrothermal atomizer, plasma atomizer), hollow cathode lamp, instrument configurations, spectral and chemical interferences.

Readings/Bibliography

Skoog, West, Holler, Crouch – Fondamenti di chimica analitica - 2° Edizione – EdiSES (2004)

Harris - Chimica analitica quantitativa - 2° Edizione – Zanichelli (2005)

Teaching methods

Classes with theoretical explanations and numerical exercises.
Students can contact the teacher for further explanations.

Assessment methods

Oral exam.

Teaching tools

Videoprojector and PC. Slides of all the lecturesare available asPowerPoint files.

Office hours

See the website of Mara Mirasoli