2022 GCSE Chemistry Notes

Major Topic Low-stakes topic
May/June 2022
GCSE Chemistry Notes
For each topic:
- Freesciencelessons video + Cognito video with notes
- Key Cards
- After each large topic, exampro questions
PAPER I
Atoms, elements and compounds
 An element is a substance that only contains one type of atom (each atom has the
same number of protons)
 Compounds contain two or more different elements chemically combined in a
fixed proportion – for example, magnesium sulfide
 Compounds will often have completely different properties to the elements from
which they were produced – if we want to separate a compound back into its
elements, we need to use a chemical reaction
 Mixtures contain different elements or compounds not chemically bonded
together – to separate mixtures, we use physical separation techniques rather
than chemical reactions
 Chemical reactions involve the formation of new products and substances, and
also tend to have a detectable energy change
 Just remember compounds ≠ molecules – compounds must be two or more
different elements joined together, molecules are just two or more of any
elements joined together, they could be the same element
Mixtures and Separation
 Physical separation techniques are used to separate mixtures only NOT

compounds
 There are 4 physical separation techniques:
 (1) Filtration – used to separate an insoluble solid from a liquid it is suspended
(not dissolved) in
 To do this, we use a filter funnel and filter paper folded in the shape of a cone
 Pour the mixture into the filter paper and funnel, the solid is too large to fit
through the pores of the filter paper so only the water passes through and solid
remains on the filter paper – so they are separated
 (2) Crystallisation – used to obtain and separate a soluble solid from a liquid that
it is dissolved in
 We can either leave the solution to evaporate slowly at room temperature or we
can heat it using a Bunsen burner, tripod and gauze
 This causes the water to evaporate, leaving crystals of the solid behind, this
works because water will have a lower boiling point than the solid dissolved in it
 Careful though to ensure that the heat does not affect the solid itself, some solids
will undergo thermal decomposition when heated
 (3) Simple distillation – this is used, like crystallisation, to separate a soluble
solid from a liquid. However, this is used when we actually want to keep the
liquid, and cannot simply evaporate it off
 First, we evaporate the liquid by heating it to a high enough temperature using a
Bunsen burner and then condensing the vapour by cooling it in another
container
 (4) Fractional distillation – this is used to separate a mixture of 2 different
liquids. These liquids must have different boiling points for this physical
separation technique to work
 We connect a flask to a fractionating column full of glass beads and again to a
condenser and another beaker
 Heat the flask using a Bunsen burner until the temperature of the thermometer
at the top of the column reaches the boiling point of the first liquid
 At this point, both liquids will be evaporating but only the liquid with the higher
boiling point will condense and drop back down once it reaches the top of the
column. The lower boiling point liquid will not condense and will pass into the
condenser, cool and form a pure liquid. The remaining liquid will be the other
higher-boiling point liquid
 If the two liquids have similar boiling points, it is much harder to separate them
 (5) Chromatography – used to separate substances in a solution based on their
different solubilities
 Again, here no chemical reactions take place, and no new substances are made
because it is a physical separation technique
 Draw a pencil line on the bottom of chromatography paper (pencil does not
dissolve in the solvent)
 Draw a dot of first colour on pencil line and dot of second colour on the pencil
line
 Place bottom of paper in solvent (a liquid that allows substances to dissolve into
it) like water and ethanol
 The solvent makes its way up the paper and the ink is dissolved into it
 Due to the different solubilities, the different substances in the mixture will
travel up the paper at different rates depending on its attraction to the stationary
or mobile phase – this will be covered in much more detail in Paper 2, but these
are the basics of how they are separated. Highly unlikely you’ll be asked on this
on paper 1 bc it is low-stakes AND a small topic
Development of the model of the atom
 The very early model of the atom was JJ Thomson’s plum pudding model:
 The plum pudding model described the atom as a ball of positive charge with
electrons embedded within it
 However, Rutherford conducted an alpha particle scattering experiment
whereby positively-charged alpha particles were fired at an extremely thin sheet
of gold foil
 If the plum pudding model was true, the particles should have passed straight
through or only be slightly deflected at most because the positive charge was
thought to be very spread out throughout the atom
 But, whilst most particles did go straight through, a small number of particles
were deflected more than expected and a small number were even deflected
backwards, so plum pudding could not be right
 Rutherford came up with the idea of the nuclear model of the atom where there
is a small, positively charged nucleus at the centre where most of the mass and
positive charge is concentrated with a cloud of electrons surrounding the
nucleus and the atom being mainly empty space
 The fact that a small number of positive alpha particles were deflected meant
that the mass wasn’t evenly spread out and that positive charge must be
concentrated in the centre
 Later on, Bohr realised that the cloud of electrons wouldn’t work as the electrons
would be attracted to the nucleus, causing atom to collapse
 Bohr’s model suggested that all electrons orbited the nucleus in shells and aren’t
anywhere in between – his theory of atomic structure was then supported by
many experiments and helped to explain other observations of the time
 Years later, Rutherford and others gave the conclusion that the nucleus could be
divided into smaller particles with the same charge as hydrogen nuclei (protons)
 Chadwick carried out experiments which provided the evidence for neutral
particles in the nucleus – these later became known as neutrons
Atoms
 Atoms are the tiny particles everything is made up of, with a radius of about
1x10-10 metres
 This shows the nuclear model of the atom (the widely accepted model)
 The nucleus is in the middle of the atom, it contains protons and neutrons
 Protons are positively charged and neutrons have no charge (neutral) so the
overall charge of the nucleus is positive due to the protons
 The nucleus is tiny compared to the rest of the atom – the radius is 1x10 -4 which
is 1/10000 the size of the atom
 Electrons orbit the nucleus in distinct shells/energy levels
 Electrons are negatively charged
 They are tiny but cover a lot of space
 They have virtually no mass in comparison to protons and neutrons but its
relative charge is the same value as the proton except negative
 An atom always has a neutral overall charge (the only time when an atom is not
neutral is when it gains or loses an electron and becomes an ion not an atom)
 Therefore, it makes sense that the number of protons = the number of electrons
in the atom
 We can use the idea that no. of protons=no. of electrons to calculate the numbers
of protons, electrons and neutrons in the atom using its periodic table symbol:
 The number at the top is the mass number (similar to relative atomic mass) and,
because almost all the mass is concentrated in the nucleus (electrons have
negligible mass), mass number = no. of protons + no. of neutrons
 The bottom number is the atomic number – this is the number of protons in the
nucleus of the atom
 Thus, by doing mass number – atomic number we get the number of neutrons in
the nucleus
 Because protons=electrons, this magnesium atom will also have 12 electrons
orbiting the nucleus
Electronic Structure
 Electrons occupy shells (aka energy levels) as they orbit the nucleus – we always
fill the lowest energy level first (the ones closest to the nucleus)
 Atoms, in order to become stable, should have a full outer shell. So, a hydrogen
atom, to have a stable electronic configuration, will have 2 electrons in its outer
shell, and a magnesium atom will have 8 electrons in its outer shell
The periodic table
 The modern periodic table is arranged into columns called groups

 In between groups 2 and 3 is a block of metals called the transition elements
 We can see that elements with similar properties occur at regular intervals (so
elements in the same group [and thus the same number of electrons in their
outer shell] share similar reactive properties)
 So, same group = same number of electrons in outer shell = similar reactions =
similar properties
 Before the discovery of protons, neutrons and electrons, scientists attempted to

classify elements by arranging them in order of their atomic weights
 These early periodic tables were incomplete and placing order strictly in order of
atomic weights placed elements in inappropriate groups (groups where they
shared different properties) so these tables were not accepted
 Mendeleev developed the first modern periodic table and overcame some of the
problems of early periodic tables
 Mendeleev started by arranging all elements in order of increasing atomic
weight but he did two main things that no one had done before:
 (1) If needed, he switched the order of specific elements so that they were
grouped according to their properties, rather than strictly following the atomic
weight order
 (2) He left gaps in his periodic table to make sure that elements with similar
properties stayed in the same groups – some of the gaps he left indicated the
existence of undiscovered elements and allowed Mendeleev to predict the
undiscovered elements’ properties. When these elements were discovered to
have the same properties as Mendeleev discovered, his ideas were confirmed
and his table was widely accepted
 The discovery of isotopes confirmed that Mendeleev was correct not to place
elements in a strict order of atomic weight but to also take into account their
properties.
 This is because isotopes of the same element have different masses but the same
chemical properties so occupy the same position on the periodic table but can
appear too heavy or too light – so the order of atomic weights is distorted
 Hence, the discovery isotopes made it possible to explain why order based on
atomic weights was not always correct
 The modern periodic table is very similar to Mendeleev’s except for two things:
 (1) It is ordered in order of atomic number rather than atomic weight (protons
had not been discovered when Mendeleev made his table). The issue with
putting elements in order of atomic weight is that the presence of isotopes meant
that elements can appear in the wrong order
 (2) The modern periodic table has group 0, the noble gases – these were not fully
discovered when Mendeleev published his table
 The periodic table contains all the known elements (~100)

 The table is laid out in order of increasing atomic number so that elements with
similar properties form columns called groups where all the elements in the
group have the same number of electrons in their outer shell so react in similar
ways and have similar properties
 The rows in the periodic table are called periods
 As many elements can have several isotopes, relative atomic mass is used when
referring to elements as a whole on the periodic table (hence why some mass
numbers are not whole numbers)
 Period number tells you how many electron shells it has and group number tells
you how many electrons the atom has in its outer shell – except group 0 which all
have a full outer shell of electrons
Metals and Non-metals

 Elements are either metals or non-metals

 Metals are found on the left and bottom of periodic table and non metals are
found on the right and top of the periodic table
 When metals react, they lose electrons to achieve a full outer energy level and
become stable
 This loss of electrons means that metals react to form positive ions because there
are more protons than electrons when an electron is lost
 The reason they lose electrons is because they have very few electrons in their
outer shell so it is easier to lose electrons to gain a stable electronic structure
(full outer shell) than gaining electrons. E.g., calcium has 2 electrons in its outer
shell, it could gain 6 or lose 2 to gain a full outer shell – so it loses 2 because it is
easier (requires less energy)
 Metals and non-metals have different properties (hence why they are classified
as two separate categories
 Metals are strong but can be bent and hammered into different shapes – they’re
also great at conducting heat and electricity
 Metals also have high boiling and melting points, so are usually solid at room
temperature (except mercury)
 Non-metals, however, are duller and more brittle than mettles
 They have lower boiling and melting points so are sometimes gases at room
temperature
 They are poor conductors of heat and electricity
 They often have a lower density than metals
Group 0
 Group 0 elements (the noble gases) are very unreactive

 This is because they have a full outer shell of electrons (8 electrons in the outer
shell except helium which has 2), so do not need to gain or lose any electrons via
a reaction to have a stable electronic structure – they already have a stable
structure
 Due to this unreactive property (thanks to their stable electronic structure), they
are used in light bulbs because they are non-flammable so are less likely to ignite
in the heat
 All group 0 are monatomic which makes sense because they are unreactive and
so will not react with other atoms to form molecules
 As you go down the group, relative atomic mass increases – in the noble gases, as
relative atomic mass increases, the boiling points increase (you don’t have to
know why, just learn it)
Group 1
 Group 1 is called the alkali metals
 All group 1 metals have 1 electron in the outer energy level – this is what makes
them all react in a similar way AND have similar chemical and physical
properties
 Alkali metals react rapidly with oxygen in oxidation reactions where by metal
oxides are formed. E.g., lithium reacting with oxygen forming lithium oxide
 They also react rapidly with chlorine to form metal chlorides
 Alkali metals also react rapidly and vigorously with water to form metal
hydroxides (and hydrogen) – since metal hydroxides are alkalis, if we placed
universal indicator in the reaction between alkali metals (and any metal, in fact)
and water, it would go from green (neutral pH7) to purple (alkaline pH>7)
 As hydrogen is produced, we see effervescence when alkali metals react with

water
 Now, the more reactive (the further down group 1), the more violent the reaction
– hence francium and water is very explosive but sodium and water is only a bit
of fizzing
 The takeaway from all these reactions from oxygen, water and chlorine is that
alkali metals are VERY reactive. Hence, they need to be stored in oil and handled
with forceps
 Alkali metals react more rapidly as we move down group 1, this is because, as we
move down group 1, their reactivity increases
 The reason for this is that, as we move down group 1, the outer electron gets
further away from the nucleus as the atoms get larger and have more shells. This
means that there is a weaker electrostatic attraction between the negative outer
electron and the positive nucleus so it is easier to lose during a reaction, hence
reactivity increases. As well as the increased distance, the shielding effect from
the internal energy levels also reduces the strength of the electrostatic attraction
between the positive nucleus and the negative outer electron
 The melting and boiling points of Group 1 atoms decrease as you go down the
group – despite what you’d expect but you just need to learn it
Group 7 (the halogens)
 The halogens have 7 electrons in their outer energy level – thus, they all react in
similar ways and have similar properties (all halogens are non-metals that have
coloured vapours)
 Each group 7 atom needs to gain 1 electron to have a stable electronic
configuration (full outer shell)
 This explains why the halogens all form diatomic molecules – each atom needs to
gain an electron, so if it bonds to another atom by a covalent bond, both atoms in
the molecule become stable (it’s a win-win)
 As you go down group 7, the relative formula mass of the molecules increases,
meaning that the molecules get larger so more intermolecular forces that require
more energy to overcome. This means that, as you go down group 7, the melting
and boiling points increase (hence top few halogens are gases but bottom few
are solid) – the only exception to the rule of “melting and boiling points increase
as you go down the group” is the alkali metals
 As you go down group 7, the halogens become less reactive

 This is because as you go down the group, the outer shell of electrons gets
further away from the nucleus. This increased distance, together with the
increased shielding effect of inner energy levels, weakens the electrostatic
attraction between the positive nucleus and the outer shell, so it is harder to gain
electrons in reactions as you go down the group
 Now, a more reactive halogen can displace a less reactive halogen from an
aqueous solution of its salt – there may come a question that asks you to predict
if a displacement reaction takes place or not between e.g., sodium bromide and
fluorine. We would need to know that the reactivity of halogens decreases as you
go down the group, so that means that fluorine is more reactive than bromine, so
will displace it – it is a linked question
 Here, the specification links group 7 with some other topics like ionic bonding,
covalent bonding and displacement reactions but don’t worry about those now
Properties of Metals
 You need to be able to compare the properties of Transition Metals with the
Alkali metals
 The alkali (group 1 metals) are soft and can be cut with a knife whereas
transition metals are hard and strong (e.g., iron)
 Group 1 metals have relatively low melting points whilst transition metals have
relatively high melting points (apart from mercury)
 Group 1 metals have a relatively low density (Li, Na and K are less dense than
water) whereas transition metals have a high density
 Group 1 metals all react very rapidly with oxygen, chlorine and water, whereas
transition metals are much less reactive tan group 1 metals
 Unlike group 1 metals, which can only form 1+ ions, transition metals can form
ions with different charges – e.g., iron can form Fe 2+ or Fe3+
 Transition elements can also form coloured compounds

 They can also be used as catalysts
Ionic Bonding
 Elements react in order to achieve a full outer energy level – they do this in order
to become stable
 One way that elements can react is by ionic bonding
 When a metal reacts with a non-metal, ionic bonding takes place

 Ionic bonding involves the transfer of electrons from the metal atom to the non-
metal atom – this makes the metal atom a positive ion (as it now has more
protons than electrons) and the non-metal atom becomes a negative ion (as it
gained an electron so now has more electrons than protons
 The positive metal ion and the negative non-metal ion now experience an
electrostatic force of attraction – which forms the strong ionic bond
 After ionic bonding, both the ions now have a stable electronic structure (they
have a full outer shell)
 We can represent this process using a dot and cross diagram:
 Now that is one way to represent ionic bonding by a dot and cross diagram – but
there is a simpler way:
 Here, we only show the outer electrons of the atoms – but still we are showing
them as dots and crosses
Ionic compounds
 Ionic compounds form structures called giant ionic lattices (which have a regular
closely-packed ion arrangement)
 There are lots of very strong electrostatic forces of attraction between oppositely
charged ions that act in all directions – this gives it a very high melting point as it
takes lots of energy to overcome these strong electrostatic forces of attraction
 Ionic compounds can be represented by dot and cross diagrams; 3D models; and
ball-and stick models
 Dot and Cross:
 These are useful for showing how ionic compounds are formed but do not show
the structure of the compound. They also do not show the relative sizes of the
ions or how they are arranged
 3D Models:
 These show the relative sizes of ions and the regular pattern but only let you see
the outer layer of the compound
 Ball and stick:
 Ball and stick models show the regular pattern in an ionic lattice and how the
ions are arranged
 They also show how the crystal extends beyond what is shown
 They show the relative sizes of the ions
 However, they suggest that there are gaps between ions when, in reality, there
aren’t
 A disadvantage of most 3D models is that they show the ions as solid spheres
which they are not
 Contrary to *cough cough* popular belief, you only have to work out the
empirical formula from a diagram:
 There are 3 main properties of ionic compounds:

 (1) High melting and boiling points – this is due to the strong electrostatic forces
of attraction between the oppositely-charged ions which act in all directions.
These take a large amount of energy to overcome and break the many strong
bonds
 (2) They are soluble in water
 (3) They do not conduct electricity when solid, but do conduct electricity when
molten or dissolved in aqueous solution
 This is because, when solid, the electrostatic forces of attraction hold the ions in
fixed positions so they cannot move. When molten or dissolved, ions are free to
move and carry charge throughout the structure
Covalent Bonding
 A covalent bond is formed when a pair of electrons is shared between two non-
metal atoms
 Atoms share electrons to have full outer shells and have a stable electronic
structure
 Both atoms end up with one extra electron in their outer shell
 The positively-charged nuclei of the atoms are attracted to the shared pair of
electrons by electrostatic forces, making covalent bonds very strong (be very
diligent when mentioning electrostatic forces when talking about covalent
bonds, they’ll only very rarely ask you to say that)
 However, I prefer to show them as two separate pairs, like alternating electrons
Properties of small molecules

 Small molecules are made up of only a few atoms joined by covalent bonds
 Hydrogen, chlorine, hydrogen chloride, methane, ammonia water, nitrogen are
all example of small/simple moleucles
 Small molecules have low melting and boiling points so they are mostly gases or
liquids at room temperature
 This is because they have very weak intermolecular forces of attraction between
the molecules which require very little energy to overcome, hence they have low
melting and boiling points
 You DO NOT need to overcome the strong covalent bonds between atoms within
the molecule to melt or boil it
 Small molecules also don’t conduct electricity in any state because the molecules
do not have an overall electric charge as there are no ions and no delocalised
electrons so cannot carry charge
 As the size of the simple covalent molecule increases, the melting and boiling
points also increase. This is because, as molecules get bigger, the intermolecular
forces increase, so more energy required to overcome them
Giant Covalent Structures
 Giant covalent structures (otherwise known as macromolecules) are similar to

giant ionic lattices but have no charged ions
 Instead, all of the atoms are bonded together by strong covalent bonds
 To melt or boil giant covalent structures, you need to overcome all of the many
strong covalent bonds between atoms – this requires lots of energy so giant
covalent structures tend to have very high melting and boiling points
 Common examples of giant covalent structures are diamond, graphite and silicon
dioxide
Allotropes of Carbon
 Allotropes are different structural forms of the same element in the same
physical state of matter
 Carbon has 4 main allotropes: diamond, graphite, graphene and fullerenes
 Diamond is a giant covalent structure where each carbon atom forms four
covalent bonds with adjacent carbon atoms
 This forms a very rigid structure as the strong covalent bonds fix atoms in place,
so diamond is very hard
 Diamond has a very high melting point, just like any other giant covalent
molecule, due to the many strong covalent bonds acting in all directions between
carbon atoms which requires a lot of energy to overcome
 Diamond does not conduct electricity because each carbon atom bonds to 4 other
carbon atoms, so all electrons are being used for bonding, so none are
delocalised
 In graphite, each carbon atom only forms 3 covalent bonds

 This creates sheets of carbon atoms arranged in hexagons
 There aren’t any covalent bonds between the layers: they are held together by
weak intermolecular forces
 As there are only weak intermolecular forces between layers, they can easily
slide over each other, making graphite soft and slippery so is ideal as a
lubricating material
 Graphite has a high melting point because the covalent bonds within the layers
need a lot of energy to break (despite having weak intermolecular forces
between the layers)
 Only 3 out of the 4 outer electrons are used in bonding so each carbon atom has
one electron that is delocalised and free to move and carry charge throughout
the structure – meaning that graphite can conduct electricity and thermal energy
 Graphene is a sheet of carbon atoms joined in hexagons – basically one layer of

graphite
 The shet is just one atom thick so it is a two-dimensional substance:
 The network of covalent bonds makes graphene very strong

 It is also incredibly light so can be added to composite materials to improve
strength without adding much weight
 Like graphite, it contains delocalised electrons so can conduct electricity
throughout the whole structure so can be used in electronics
 Fullerenes are also allotropes of carbon and are hollow molecules that can be
shaped like tubes or balls
 They are made up of carbon atoms arranged in hexagons, pentagons or
heptagons
 Each carbon atom bonded to 3 other carbon atoms so they can conduct
electricity due to delocalised electrons
 Buckminsterfullerene forms a hollow sphere containing 20 hexagons and 12
pentagons and has the molecular formula C60
 Nanotubes are fullerenes which are tiny carbon cylinders – the ratio between
length and diameter is very high
 They are good conductors of heat and electricity
 Fullerenes have several uses:
 (1) In medicine – they can cage other molecules for drug delivery
 (2) As catalysts – they have a large surface area
 (3) As lubricants – there are no bonds between molecules so they are soft and
reduce friction
 (4) Strengthening materials
 (5) In electronics
Metallic Bonding
 Metals consist of a giant structure where atoms are arranged in a regular pattern
 They have lots of atoms closely packed together
 In metals, the electrons in the outer shells of atoms are delocalised – meaning
that the electrons are free to move through the whole structure
 There are strong forces of electrostatic attraction between the sea of delocalised
electrons which are negatively charged and the positive metal ions – this
electrostatic attraction is metallic bonding and holds the metal structure
together
 The delocalised electrons also allow the metal to conduct electricity as
delocalised electrons can carry charge throughout the structure
 So, the sea of delocalised electrons allows metal to conduct electricity and keeps
the ions together like a glue
 Metals have high melting and boiling points because there are strong
electrostatic forces of attraction between the metal ions and the sea of
delocalised electrons – because of their high strength, they require lots of energy
to overcome so they have high melting points
 This means that most metals are solid at room temperature
 Metals are also soft and malleable because they are held in a regular structure
with layers that can easily slide over each other
 Alloys solve this problem of pure metals being too soft
 Alloys are mixtures of metals and other elements that are harder and more
useful than pure metals
 Different elements have different sized atoms so, when another element is mixed
with a pure metal, the regular layers are distorted so that they cannot easily slide
over each other – hence alloys are harder than pure metals
States of Matter
 Materials are either solid, liquid or gas – these are the 3 states of matter
 The state that a material is in depends on the strength of the forces of attraction
between particles of a material (atoms/ions/molecules)
 The strength of the forces between particles depends on:
 (1) The material – the structure of the substance, the types of bonds holding the
particle together
 (2) The temperature
 (3) The pressure
 We use a model called particle theory to explain how particles in a material
behave in each of the 3 states of matter
 In the particle model, each particle is considered to be a small, solid, inelastic
sphere
 Solids have this structure:
 In solids, there are very strong forces of attraction between particles – these
forces hold particles close together in fixed positions to form a very regular
lattice arrangement
 The particles do not move from positions, so solids have a definite shape and
volume – they do not flow like liquids
 The particles do, however, vibrate on the spot and, as temperature increases, the
particles vibrate faster
 Liquids have this structure:

 In liquids there are relatively weak forces of attraction between particles so

particles are randomly arranged and are free t move around each other, but
remain in contact with one another
 Liquids have a fixed volume but not a fixed shape and will take the shape of the
container they are in
 The hotter a liquid gets, the faster particles move around each other
 Gases have this structure:
 The forces of attraction between particles in a gas are very weak, hence particles
are free to move and move in a random, rapid motion
 Particles are travelling at different speeds but in straight lines
 They collide with teach other and with the sides of the container
 Gases do not have a fixed shape or a fixed volume and will always fill any
container
 As temperature increases, the faster particles move and the more frequently
(and with more energy) they hit the walls of the container, causing the gas
pressure to increase or the volume to increase if the container is not sealed
 Limitations of the particle theory include that:

 (1) It models particles as solids
 (2) It models particles as inelastic spheres
 (3) It does not show the forces of attraction between particles or how strong
they are
 (4) Usually, the sizes and distances between particles are not to scale
24dm3
More Notes on Quantitative Chemistry
 When working out things in the exam, Mr Turbitt’s little grid structure is good
for figuring out the answer, but to get method marks (just in case u get it
wrong), you need to show more methodical working out, showing equations etc.
 With atom economy, you must multiply the Mr by the big number as well (this is
the only case of when we do this, usually we simply ignore the big number)
 Percentage yield = actual/theoretical
 Reactions with only 1 product have a 100% atom economy
Reactivity of Metals
 Metals react with oxygen to form metal oxides

 These reactions are called oxidation reactions
 For example, magnesium reacts with oxygen to form magnesium oxide; and iron
reacts with oxygen to form iron oxide
 Gaining oxygen is called an oxidation reaction
 Losing oxygen is called a reduction reaction
 Now, oxidation and reduction can also be used in terms of electrons
 Some reactions are called redox reactions because both reduction and oxidation
happen at the same time
 We can test metals’ reactivity by reacting the metals with water and with dilute
acids
 Metals react with water to form metal hydroxides and hydrogen
 By testing a range of different metals reacting with water, we can work out a
reactivity series of the metals from most reactive to least reactive
 We can tell the relative reactivity by comparing how vigorous the reaction with
water is – to quantify this, we can test the temperature change and the rate of
production of hydrogen gas. These values allow us to compare the reactivity of
different metals via their reactions with water
 However, the problem with comparing reactivities by reactions with water is
that some metals that are less reactive than calcium do not actually react with
water at all
 To compare the relative reactivities of these metals, we need to use their
reactions with dilute acids
 Metals react with dilute acids to form a salt and hydrogen
 As long as the metal is more reactive than hydrogen, it will have a reaction with
dilute acids – this means that we can compare the reactivities of less reactive
metals by comparing how
vigorous the reactions are, the
temperature change, and the
rate of production of hydrogen
 The production of hydrogen can
be detected using a splint test
(and comparing how loud the
squeaky pops are) or using a
gas syringe and comparing
volume of hydrogen produced
per second
 With these two reactions, we

can form reactivity series for
metals
 The reactivity series often includes carbon and hydrogen (which are two non-
metals) as they are commonly used as reference points
 You don’t need to memorise this, but you might need to construct one based on
data
 What determines reactivity (how rapidly a metal reacts)?

 Well, when metals react, they lose electrons to form positive ions
 The easier they can lose these electrons to form positive ions, the more reactive
they are
 So, a more reactive metal will more easily lose its outer electrons to form a
positive ion than a less reactive metal
Extraction of Metals and Reduction
 Unreactive metals such as gold are found in the Earth as the pure metal itself –
this means that these metals don’t need to be “extracted” per-say because they
do not easily react with other elements in the ground like oxygen
 Metals like iron and copper are often found as compounds in the ground, like
iron oxide and copper oxide ores (rock containing enough metal to make it
economic to extract the metal from it)
 Hence, to obtain the metal we want, we need to extract it from its compound
 A more reactive element will displace a less reactive element from its compound
in a displacement reaction
 Therefore, we can use this concept to extract metals from their raw material
compounds found in the ground – we usually do this using carbon (as carbon is
more reactive than metals like iron and copper and it is quite cheap)
 This process of using carbon in a displacement reaction to extract a pure metal is
called reduction with carbon
 The reason it’s called reduction by carbon is that the carbon, when it displaces
the metal from its oxide, reduces the metal because it loses the oxygen it was
bonded to
Oxidation and Reduction in Terms of Electrons
 Other than gaining and losing oxygen, oxidation and reduction can be used to
describe the gain or loss of electrons
 Oxidation is the loss of electrons
 Reduction is the gain of electrons
 Remember this by OILRIG:
 Oxidation
 Is
 Loss
 Reduction
 Is
 Gain
 Oxidation is both the loss of electrons and the gaining of oxygen
 Reduction is both the gaining of electrons and the loss of oxygen
 For instance, Mg  Mg2+ + 2e–

 Here, this is a half equation for oxidation – the magnesium atom is losing 2
electrons to form the magnesium 2+ ion
 S + 2e–  S2–
 A sulfur atom is gaining 2 electrons in this half equation, to form a sulfur 2- ion –
the sulfur is being reduced
 Here, the zinc goes from being a zinc atom to a Zn2+ ion, suggesting that it has lost
2 electrons in the process of Zn  Zn2+ + 2e–
 Therefore, zinc is oxidised
 The copper, however, goes from Cu2+ to being a copper atom
 So, it goes from Cu2+ + 2e–  Cu
 Therefore, copper is reduced
 This is a redox reaction because both oxidation and reduction are taking place
Reactions of Acids with Metals
 There are 3 acids you need to know of:

 Hydrochloric acid HCl
 Sulfuric acid H2SO4
 Nitric acid HNO3
 All acids contain hydrogen
 All the metals above hydrogen on the reactivity series can displace hydrogen
from acids
 For example:
 The magnesium has displaced the hydrogen from the sulfuric acid, producing a
salt called magnesium sulfate as well as hydrogen gas (because remember the
hydrogen has essentially been shoved out of its compound)
 So, when acids react with metals, a salt and hydrogen are produced
 At this point, acids reacting with metals is a redox displacement reaction, but we
wouldn’t call a neutralisation reaction – just don’t. Neutralisation is when water
is produced, not hydrogen
 Hydrochloric acid produces salts called chlorides
 Sulfuric acid produces salts called sulfates
 Nitric acid produces salts called nitrates
 The greater the difference in reactivity between the acid and hydrogen, the faster
it reacts with acids
 For example, iron will react less rapidly with acids than calcium, because there is
a greater difference in reactivity between calcium and hydrogen than iron and
hydrogen
 If the metal is less reactive than hydrogen, it will not react with acids – copper is
less reactive than hydrogen so, if you place copper in HCl, for example, you
would not observe any effervescence of hydrogen
 Acids produce H+ ions in aqueous solutions (e.g., HCl  H+ + Cl-)

 These H+ ions are reduced in the reaction between acids and metals to produce
hydrogen gas (2H+ +2e–  H2)
 The magnesium atom is oxidised to form an Mg2+ ion via the half equation of
Mg Mg2+ + 2e–
 As both oxidation and reduction are taking place, this is a redox reaction
Neutralisation
 In aqueous solution, acids ionise to produce H+ ions

 Bases are chemicals that can neutralise acids to produce a salt and water
 ANY CHEMICAL that neutralises an acid from low pH to neutral and produces a
salt and water is considered a base
 Bases are usually metal oxides or metal hydroxides – e.g., copper oxide, sodium
hydroxide
 Another type of bases is metal carbonates
 There is a specific type of bases called alkalis
 A base that is soluble is called an alkali
 Sodium hydroxide, for example, can dissolve in water and can neutralise acids to
produce a salt and water – so sodium hydroxide is an alkali (and therefore also a
base)
 So, an insoluble base is JUST called a base, not an alkali
 In aqueous solution, alkalis produce hydroxide ions (OH --)
 E.g., NaOH  Na+ + OH—
 The pH scale tells us how acidic or alkaline a solution is

 Acids have a pH between 0 and 6, alkalis have a pH of 8 and 14
 A substance with pH7 is neutral
 So, the lower the pH, the more acidic (the higher concentration of H +ions) and
the higher the pH, the more alkaline (the higher the concentration of OH —ions)
 We can measure the pH using either a pH probe or universal indicator
 pH probes determine pH electronically, this is much more accurate and has a
higher resolution than using universal indicator which is subjective to the
observer, is qualitative and has a very low resolution only used to estimate the
pH
 Green universal indicator shows a neutral solution of pH7, yellow is a solution of
about pH3-5 and red is a pH0-2 solution
 Purple universal indicator colour shows a very alkaline solution
 When acids and alkalis react together, they undergo neutralisation whereby the
solution becomes pH7 as the acidity and alkalinity cancel each other out
 We can represent neutralisation with a general ionic equation of:
 The H+ ions come from the acid and the OH—comes from the alkali to produce
water, neutralising the two
 The salt produced in neutralisation depends on the positive ion from the base
and the negative ion from the acid
 For example, HCl + NaOH
 Here, the negative ion from the hydrochloric acid is the Cl—ion and the positive
ion is the Na+ ion from the alkali
 So, the salt produced is sodium chloride, NaCl
 Metal carbonates are another group of bases that react with acids to produce
salts and water
 Metal carbonates, due to the carbon within them, produce a salt, water AND
carbon dioxide when reacting with acids
 This still neutralises the acid so they are called bases
Strong and Weak Acids
 In aqueous solutions, acid molecules ionise to release H + ions

 Some acids are strong, some are weak
 Hydrochloric acid is an example of a strong acid
 A strong acid will have a lower pH (more acidic) than a weak acid of the same
concentration
 This is because strong acids fully ionise in aqueous solutions (all of the molecules
ionise to release H+ ions) so will have a higher concentration of H+ ions than a
weak acid of the same concentration. Higher concentration of H + means a lower
pH
 We can represent the ionisation of a strong acid by:
 Because the arrow goes one way:, we know that this acid is a strong acid
 Weak acids are represented by a reversible arrow:
 We know that this acid is a weak acid because it has the reversible arrow
 Weak acids only partially ionise in aqueous solutions, meaning that only some of
the molecules ionise to release H+ ions. This means that weak acids have a lower
concentration of H+ ions than strong acids of the same concentration
 Lower H+ concentration means weak acids have a higher pH than a strong acid of
the same concentration
 So, to recap, strong acids have a lower pH than weak acids – they are also more
reactive because they have a higher concentration of H+ and, as we see in paper
2, a higher concentration leads to a greater rate of reaction
 Also, as you go down 1 on the pH scale, the concentration of H + ions increases by
a factor of 10
 Acid strength tells you what proportion of the acid molecules ionise in water
 Concentration, however, tells you the amount of acid in a certain volume of water
 The larger the amount of acid is in a fixed volume of solution, the higher the
concentration
 An acid can be dilute and strong – dilute because there are not many acid
molecules present, but strong because a very high proportion of the acid
molecules that are present ionise to release H+ ion
 The pH will decrease with increasing acid concentration, regardless of strength
Required Practical 1: Making Salts
Aim: To prepare a pure, dry sample of a soluble salt from an insoluble oxide or
carbonate and a dilute acid
Method:
1) Start with a fixed volume of dilute sulfuric acid (which will be our limiting
reactant) and pour it into a beaker. We do not want any acid to remain at the end
of the practical as it would contaminate our salt
2) Place the beaker of acid onto a tripod and gauze and heat it using a Bunsen
burner until it is almost boiling (don’t let it boil as that could be dangerous)
3) Use a spatula to add (insoluble) copper oxide to the acid and stir using a glass
rod
4) The copper oxide will react with the sulfuric acid to produce copper sulfate,
which is soluble. Therefore, as we add the copper oxide, it will seem to disappear
as the soluble salt is formed
5) We keep adding copper oxide using a spatula until it stops reacting and the solid
copper oxide remains at the bottom of the beaker, even after stirring. This shows
that no more salt is being produced, the acid has been used up and that the
copper oxide is now in excess
6) The reaction has finished and all the sulfuric acid is used up – it is now copper
sulfate solution with some unreacted insoluble copper oxide accumulating at the
bottom
7) Now, we need to remove the unreacted copper oxide – as it is insoluble, we can
do so using filtration by folding a filter paper into a cone shape and placing it in a
funnel. Pour the mixture into the filter paper over a conical flask and the solution
left (filtrate) should be a pure copper sulfate solution
8) Place the copper sulfate solution in an evaporating basin and heat gently over a
beaker of boiling water which acts as a water bath. Heat until crystals begin to
form and then remove the heat and let the rest of the water evaporate off slowly
and pat with a paper towel to produce pure, dry copper sulfate crystals
Required Practical 2: Titrations
Aim: To determine the volume of acid needed to neutralise an alkali and to determine
the concentration of the acid, knowing the concentration of the alkali
(NOTE: in the exam, you could be asked to determine the volume of the acid OR the
volume of the alkali – read the question properly so that you know which is in the
burette and which is in the conical flask be VERY careful with this.)
Method:
1) Essentially, what we are aiming to do with a titration, is measure the volume of

acid (e.g., hydrochloric) needed to neutralise a known volume and concentration
of alkali (E.g., sodium hydroxide) and based off these values, we can calculate the
concentration of the acid using calculations
2) Use a volumetric pipette and filler to transfer 25cm 3 of sodium hydroxide
solution into a conical flask
3) Add 5 drops of phenolphthalein indicator to the solution which will make it
appear pink (if this was the other way round, and we had the acid in conical
flask, it would appear colourless)
4) Place the flask on a white tile to see the colour change more clearly
5) Use a funnel to fill a burette with sulfuric acid until it reaches the “0” mark
(again, I’ll repeat: if we want to measure the volume of alkali needed to
neutralise a known volume of acid, we use a pipette for the acid, and a burette for
the alkali)
6) First, carry out a rough titration by opening the burette tap and seeing roughly
when there is a colour change – note down the rough titre
7) Carry out an accurate titration by opening the tap and closing it 2cm 3 before the
rough titre volume and begin adding the acid drop by drop, swirling the flask to
mix it
8) Once there is a colour change from pink to colourless (or colourless to pink if we
are adding alkali to an acid), this indicates the end-point of the neutralisation
reaction, so close the tap and note down the volume of acid used by reading it off
the burette from the bottom of the meniscus
9) Repeat until two concordant results are found which are within 0.1cm 3 of each
other and calculate the mean – ignore the rough titre and any results that are not
concordant and, of course, ignore anomalies
Calculating Concentration
 The titration practical gives us the volume of acid needed to neutralise the alkali
of known volume and known concentration – so now we can calculate the
concentration of the acid
 Remember, if molar ratio was 1:2 (i.e., there was 2HCl and 1NaOH, we would
have to multiply the moles by 2 before using it in the second equation)
Electrolysis
 Solid ionic compounds cannot conduct electricity because the ions are fixed in
place by strong electrostatic forces of attraction so the ions cannot move
 When ionic compounds are molten or dissolved in water, the forces of attraction
are broken and the ions are free to move
 This means that only molten or aqueous ionic compounds can conduct electricity
and become an electrolyte
 Electrolysis is the process of passing an electric current through an ionic
compound that is molten or aqueous, and where ions in the liquid or solution
move towards the electrodes, causing ionic substance to decompose – e.g.,
electrolysis of molten aluminium oxide breaks down into aluminium and oxygen
 Let’s look at the electrolysis of an ionic compound, lead bromide, for example,
which is PbBr2:
 The electrolysis set up is a container with two electrodes connected to a power

supply: there is a negative electrode (the cathode) and a positive electrode (the
anode) submerged in an electrolyte that conducts electricity (free ions in ionic
compounds conduct the charge from negative to positive electrode)
 In the molten lead bromide, the ions are free to move so we have Pb 2+ and Br—
ions floating around in the liquid
 The positive lead ions are attracted to the negative electrode so they move
towards it and are REDUCED – they gain 2 electrons to form neutral Pb atoms
which then sink to the bottom as lead metal
 We can represent the reduction of lead ions at the cathode by a half equation,
Pb2+ + 2e--  Pb
 The negative bromide ions are attracted to the positive electrode so they move
towards it and are OXIDISED – they lose 1 electron each to form neutral bromine
atoms which bond with adjacent atoms to form diatomic bromine molecules
 We can represent the oxidation of bromide ions at the anode by the half equation
2Br–  Br2 + 2e–
Extracting Metals by Electrolysis
 We can extract metals from their compounds in two different ways: reduction
with carbon (displacement reactions) or electrolysis
 We can reduce them with other metals, but that would be too expensive
 Reduction with carbon is cheap and great, but the problem is that it only works
for metals less reactive than carbon – because it needs to be able to displace it
 How do we extract metals that are more reactive than carbon on the reactivity
series? Electrolysis
 For example, aluminium oxide – aluminium is more reactive than carbon so we
have to extract the pure metal from its oxide using electrolysis
 Aluminium oxide is mined from the ground in an ore called bauxite – aluminium
oxide is not useful, but pure aluminium is
 Aluminium oxide contains the Al3+ ion and the O2– ion (hence it has the chemical
formula Al2O3)
 In the first stage of electrolysis of aluminium oxide, we need to melt the
aluminium down so that its ions can be free to move and become an electrolyte.
 However, the issue is that aluminium oxide has a very high melting point so, to
lower the melting point, we mix the aluminium oxide with cryolite so that less
energy is needed to extract aluminium, saving money
 You’ll learn about this in paper 2 but mixtures often have much lower melting
points (and higher boiling points) than pure substances
 The reason we can’t simply dissolve the aluminium oxide instead of melting it is
because the Al3+ ion is more reactive than H+, so the H+ would be reduced at the
cathode rather than the aluminium (more on this later)
 Anyway, after we mix it with cryolite and melt it, we place it in a container with a
cathode and an anode both made of graphite (carbon) and connected to a power
supply
 We use graphite because it conducts electricity (delocalised electrons) and it has
a high melting point so can withstand the heat
 The Al3+ ions are attracted to the cathode (the negative electrode) where they are
reduced and thus gain 3 electrons to form neutral aluminium atoms in the
reaction of: Al3+ + 3e–  Al
 The O2– (oxide not oxygen) ions are attracted to the positive electrode (the
anode) and are oxidised and thus lose 2 electrons to form neutral oxygen atoms
that then bond with adjacent oxygen atoms to form diatomic oxygen molecules
in the reaction: 2O2–  O2 + 4e–
 The anode must be replaced regularly due to this production of oxygen gas. The
oxygen gas will react with the carbon under the high temperatures to form
carbon dioxide gas which escapes the liquid and takes carbon away with it, so it
will eventually wear away
 Electrolysis is expensive for two reasons: melting the compounds like aluminium
oxides requires lots of energy (even with the cryolite), and a lot of energy is
needed to produce the electric current – hence, if possible, we use reduction by
carbon
 The overall equation for the electrolysis of aluminium oxide to form aluminium
and oxygen is: 2Al2O3  4Al + 3O2
Electrolysis of Aqueous solutions
 Aqueous solutions are dissolved in water

 So, we will be looking at the products formed when we have an aqueous
electrolyte (we looked at the molten electrolyte of aluminium oxide in the last
topic)
 Water molecules in these aqueous solutions, ionise to form H+ ions and OH– ions
when electrolysed – so we must take these into consideration
 Let’s say we had copper sulfate solution (CuSO4)
 We have 4 different ions here: H+, Cu2+, OH– and SO42–
 At the cathode, 2 different ions are attracted to it: the H+ ions and the Cu2+ ions
because they are both positive
 Which of them will be reduced at the cathode? You cannot have both ions being
reduced
 As a rule of thumb, the LEAST REACTIVE ion always gets reduced at the cathode
 This makes sense because the less reactive ion is less likely to stay as ions
(higher reactivity means more easily becomes an ion)
 So, in this case, because copper is less reactive than hydrogen, the COPPER will
be reduced at the cathode to form neutral copper atoms in the half equation of
Cu2+ + 2e–  Cu which is a reduction reaction
 This makes sense because a lower reactivity means that it has a lower tendency
to form an ion, so it will have a lower tendency to remain as an ion as well
 The hydrogen ions will then remain in the solution as ions
 At the anode (the positive electrode), there is no such “competition”, oxygen gas
will always be produced at the anode UNLESS there is a halide ion present in the
solution – so the hierarchy is halogens>oxygen>other atoms
 Remember halides are just group 7 ions e.g., chloride, bromide, fluoride, iodide
 The oxygen gas at the anode is produced by an oxidation reaction, in this
relatively-difficult half equation: 4OH–  O2 + 2H2O + 4e–
 It is important that the electrodes we use are inert (unreactive) so that they do
not react with the elements we are making – platinum is a good example of an
inert material used to make electrodes
 Let’s look at an example: predict the products at the anode and the cathode of the
electrolysis of NaCl(aq)
 It is aqueous, so we need to take into account H+ and OH– ions as well as the Na+
and Cl– ions
 The H+ and Na+ ions are both attracted to the cathode. Since hydrogen is less
reactive than sodium, hydrogen ions will be reduced instead of the sodium ions
at the cathode, via 2H+ + 2e–  H2
 At the anode, both Cl– and OH– are attracted to it. Since Cl– is a halide, it will be
oxidised instead of the OH– ion, in 2Cl–  Cl2 + 2e–
Exothermic and Endothermic Reactions

 Exothermic reactions transfer energy from the reacting molecules to the

surroundings so, in exothermic reactions, the temperature of the surroundings
increases
 Exothermic reactions include combustion, many oxidation reactions and
neutralisation
 We can represent exothermic reactions by a reaction profile:
 Reactants are at a higher energy than the products because energy has been
transferred from the molecules to the surroundings – energy is lost to the
surroundings
 The difference in the energy (ΔH or enthalpy change) tells us the amount of
energy that has been released to the surroundings:
 There are many examples of exothermic reaction uses, but every day uses
include self-heating cans for food and drink; and hand warmers
 Unlike exothermic reactions, endothermic reactions take in energy from the

surroundings, decreasing the temperature of the surroundings
 An example of an endothermic reaction is thermal decomposition – another
example is the reaction of citric acid and sodium hydrogen carbonate
 Endothermic reactions are used in sports injury packs which are cold packs
placed on injuries to reduce swellin
ΔH
c
 In endothermic reactions, the reactants are at a lower energy than the products
because energy is taken in from the surroundings
 The difference in energy (ΔH) between reactants and products tells us the
amount of energy taken in by the reaction
 However, in both endothermic and exothermic reactions, the energy rises to a

peak and then falls
 This is the activation energy
 Reactions can only take place when particles collide with each other with
sufficient energy to react
 The minimum amount of energy required in order for particles to react is called
the activation energy and we can see that on the reaction profiles for exothermic
and endothermic reactions
Ea
Ea
 However, no matter exothermic or endothermic, the overall amount of energy in

the reactants and surroundings doesn’t change because energy is conserved in
reactions – it cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred
Required Practical 4: Temperature Changes
Aim: Investigate the variables that affect temperature changes in reacting solutions (we
will be adding sodium hydroxide solution to hydrochloric acid in a neutralisation
reaction)
 We will be adding increasing volumes of sodium hydroxide solution to

hydrochloric acid and measuring the maximum temperature reached for each
experiment
Variables
 Independent variable: Volume of sodium hydroxide

 Dependent variable: maximum temperature change
 Control variables: volume of hydrochloric acid, concentrations of hydrochloric
acid and sodium hydroxide solution
Method
1) Use a measuring cylinder to measure 30cm3 of dilute hydrochloric acid and

transfer it into a polystyrene cup (polystyrene is used to insulate the reaction,
reducing amount of energy lost)
2) Place the cup inside a beaker to prevent it falling over and place cotton wool
between the beaker and the cup
3) Record the starting temperature of the acid using a thermometer
4) Use a measuring cylinder to measure 5cm3 of sodium hydroxide solution and
transfer it into the cup
5) Place a lid onto the cup and place the thermometer through the hole in the lid.
Stir the solution using the thermometer
6) As neutralisation is an exothermic reaction, it releases energy, so the
temperature will increase
7) When the reading stops increasing, we record the highest temperature reached
8) Rinse out and dry the cup, repeating the experiment using different volumes of
sodium hydroxide solution in 5cm3 intervals until 40cm3 of sodium hydroxide
9) We repeat the whole experiment two more times to get 3 sets of results and
calculate a mean for the maximum temperature reached for each volume of
sodium hydroxide
NOTE: they could ask you to carry out this experiment in ANY context. It could be to
investigate how acid concentration affects temperature change by using a reaction
between an acid and a carbonate – it’s the same experiment, just slightly different. Any
required practical question that says “temperature change” means this one.
Results
 Initially, as the volume of sodium hydroxide solution increases, the maximum

temperature reached increases because, when we add more particles of sodium
hydroxide, they react with hydrochloric acid and release more energy as the
reaction is exothermic
 At a certain volume, the maximum temperature reached stops increasing no
matter how much sodium hydroxide we add – at this point, the sodium
hydroxide is in excess and the acid is now limiting the increase in the rate of
reaction
 It even decreases slightly because the volume of the whole solution is increasing
so the energy is spread across a larger volume, so appears to be a lower
temperature
Bond Energies
 During reactions, bond breaking and bond making take place

 During bon breaking, energy is taken in from the surroundings (bond breaking is
an endothermic process)
 Making the bonds then releases energy (bond breaking is endothermic)
 The amount of energy taken in during bond breaking and the amount of energy
released during bond making determine whether the overall reaction is
exothermic or endothermic
 In an exothermic reaction, more energy is released during bond making than
energy taken in during bond making, so the overall energy change is negative so
it is –ΔH
 In an endothermic reaction, more energy is taken in during bond breaking than
energy released during bond making, so the overall energy change is positive,
meaning it is +ΔH
 You may be required to calculate the energy changes or the bond energies
involved in a certain reaction, you will be given the energy stored in each bond
and the structure of each reactant and product, for example:
 To do this question, we need the total energy required to break the bonds of the
reactants, and the total energy released when making the bonds of the products
 The total energy taken in when bond making is 436 + 242 = 678 kJ/mol
 The total energy released when bond making is 2 x 431 = 862 kJ/mol
 To calculate the overall energy change, we use the equation:
 So, all we simply do, is do 678 – 862 = -184 kJ/mol
 An interesting variation of this is not finding the overall energy change, but
finding the bond energy of a specific bond, for example:
 First, we draw out the different molecules:
 Now, we use the same concept, and the same formula, except we form an
equation
 (4n + 2x498) – (2x805 + 4x464) = -818
 4n + 996 – 1610 – 1856 = -818
 4n – 2470 = -818
 4n = 1652
 n = 413 kJ/mol
 This example I got disastrously wrong in class:
 Again, we form the equation

 (4x412 + 193) – (3x412 + X + 366) = -51
 1841 – 1236 – 366 – X = -51
 239 – X = -51
 -X = -290
 X=290 kJ/mol
Cells and batteries
 If we take two different metals and place them into an electrolyte, we can
produce electricity
 An electrolyte is a solution that can conduct electricity. E.g., an ionic compound
solution (these ions then react with the metals)
voltmeter
 An electric current will flow through the wire and we will find that there is a
voltage between them because a chemical reaction is taking place
 A cell can only produce electricity for a certain period of time – eventually, the
chemicals in a cell run out and the reaction stops
 Cells will only produce electricity if there is a difference in reactivity between the
two metals
 If they are the same metal, for example, there will be no difference in reactivity
so no current will flow
 The greater the difference in reactivity between the two metals, the greater the
potential difference produced by the cell. E.g., using magnesium and copper will
produce a greater potential difference than if we use iron and copper
 The concentration and type of electrolyte will also affect the potential difference
 The greater the concentration of ions in the electrolyte, the greater the potential
difference produced
 The more reactive metal always donates its electrons to the less reactive metal.
That’s because more reactive metals have a higher tendency to lose electrons to
form positive ions
 That means, in our example, the zinc electrode will donate electrons (oxidise) to
the copper electrode which gain these electrons (reduced)
 Because the zinc is the source of electrons, the more reactive metal is the
negative electrode and the less reactive metal is the positive electrode
 In a non-rechargeable battery, the reaction is irreversible, so once the reactants

run out and become products (ions in electrolyte run out and metal atoms react),
the reaction ends and no more electricity is produced
 In a rechargeable battery, the reaction is reversible so, once we supply an
external electric current, we can reverse the reaction and the reactants are
produced again, so the reaction can repeat
 An example of a non-rechargeable battery is an alkaline battery
Fuel Cells
 In a fuel cell, we react a fuel such as hydrogen with pure oxygen or air
 2H2 + O2  2H2O
 This reaction releases energy in the form of an electrical current and the only
waste product it releases is water
 At the negative electrode, hydrogen molecules are oxidised (they lose electrons)
to form H+ ions
 We can represent this using 2H2  4H+ + 4e−
 These electrons that are lost from the hydrogen molecules pass through the wire
to form the electrical current
 The H+ ions produced from the oxidation of hydrogen molecules are then passed
through the electrolyte and to the cathode where they react with oxygen to form
water
 The electrolyte does not let hydrogen or electrons through, but only allows H +
ions (protons) through it
 At the positive electrode, oxygen molecules are reduced (they gain electrons)
and react with the H+ ions to form water
 O2 + 4H+ + 4e−  2H2O
 It is important to know that these H+ ions come from the oxidation of hydrogen
at the anode and have travelled through the electrolyte – the electrons have
come from the electrical circuit
 Because both oxidation and reduction are happening, this is a redox reaction
 This is different to electrolysis because the negative electrode is the anode and
the positive electrode is the cathode. The anode is always the site of oxidation (in
both electrolysis and fuel cells) and the cathode is always the site of reduction
 Hydrogen fuel cells do not get less efficient the longer they run
 Rechargeable batteries, however, store less electricity the more charging cycles
they go through so eventually need to be replaced
 Batteries also store less energy than fuel cells, so need to be recharged more
often, and these recharges take a long time, whereas fuel cells take a very short
amount of time to refill with hydrogen
 Fuel cells run on hydrogen, which is an explosive gas if exposed to a flame and is
very difficult to store safely
 No dangerous fuels are required with rechargeable batteries that are
manufactured correctly
 Hydrogen fuel cells produce a relatively low potential difference so several are
needed together and rechargeable batteries produce a greater potential
difference
 Hydrogen is also a gas so takes up way more space to store than a rechargeable
battery
PAPER II
Calculating Rates of Reaction
 To calculate the mean rate of reaction, we can either do:

amount of reactant used amount of product formed
 or
time taken time taken
 Rate of reaction can be measured in g/s, cm3/s, or mol/s
 To calculate the rate of reaction at a specific point on a curve, we draw a tangent
and calculate the gradient
 To calculate the mean rate of reaction in certain period of time, we would simply
use the equation above
Factors affecting rate of reaction

 Collision theory states that chemical reactions can only take place when reacting
particles collide with each other and with sufficient energy
 The rate of a chemical reaction is determined by the frequency of successful
collisions
Effect of Concentration and Pressure
 When we carry out any reaction, the product-time graph always looks like this:
 We can explain this using collision theory

 Reactions are rapid initially (steep gradient) because we have a large number of
reactant molecules (a high concentration)
 This means that we have a large number of successful collisions per second
because they are very close together
 As reaction progresses, the reaction slows down because number of reactant
molecules is running out so the frequency of successful collisions is decreasing,
decreasing the rate of reaction
 The graph then levels off because reactions stop due to all of reactants running
out so no more collisions take place
 We can represent the effect of concentration and pressure (same concept is one
is particles within liquids and the other is gaseous particles) in this diagram:
 Both containers have the same volume of gas/liquid but the one on the right has
more particles – hence the concentration/pressure is higher
 On the right, the particles are very close together due to the high
pressure/concentration – because of this, there will be more frequent successful
collisions between particles
 Therefore, as we increase concentration/pressure, the rate of reaction increases
 In fact, the rate is proportional to the concentration/pressure – if we double
concentration or pressure, we double the rate of reaction
 The rate of reaction is faster in the higher concentration (explained above) as we

can see that the gradient is greater (line is steeper)
 There is a greater quantity of product formed as well because we had a greater
quantity of reactants at the beginning
Effect of Surface Area

 As we increase the surface area of a reactant solid, the rate of reaction increases
 To explain this, we need a diagram:
 When we have a solid reactant, only the particles on the surface can react with
other reacting particles (shown in orange)
 Reacting particles like those in a liquid or gas, cannot collide with particles that
are not exposed to the surface
 If we split the solid into smaller pieces (in other words, we increase the surface
area to volume ratio):
 So, as we increased the surface area, more particles became exposed to

collisions, meaning that more particles can collide and react per second – in
other words the frequency of successful collisions has increased
 Smaller sized blocks of solid reactant have a greater surface area to volume ratio
than larger blocks, which is why, when we split it up, the rate of reaction
increased because the surface area in comparison to its volume increased
 This helps to explain why powdered reactants show a higher rate of reaction
than granules because they are smaller and finer, so higher SA:V
 To investigate the effect of surface area on rate of reaction, we can use the
following apparatus:
 The CaCO3 in the marble chips reacts with the hydrochloric acid to produce
carbon dioxide gas
 We can use the rate of production of CO2 to measure the rate of reaction
 If we compare using one large marble chip with several smaller marble chips
(with the same mass), we will see that the smaller marble chips of the same mass
will have a higher rate of reaction because they have a higher surface area to
volume ratio
 The bubbles can be quite rapid so, instead of using a measuring cylinder, we can
get more accurate results by using a gas syringe (note: accuracy and validity are
two different things, if we wanted to assess the validity, we would say use same
mass of marble chip, same volume/conc of HCl, etc)
 In fact, we can use another set up to test the surface area:
 Here, we can measure the mass of carbon dioxide lost from the flask (mass
decrease) and also use that to determine the rate of reaction
 The cotton wool allows carbon dioxide to pass through it but does not allow acid
to splash out of the flask and affect the mass and lead to anomalies
Effect of Temperature on rate

 There is a very important part of collision theory we have not looked at in detail
– the particles must collide with sufficient energy
 This sufficient energy is the activation energy of the reaction
 Activation energy is the minimum amount of energy required for reactant
particles to collide and react (collide successfully)
 You need to think of activation energy as a barrier, a grade boundary, if you like
 When we increase the temperature, we increase the energy of the particles
 This means that more particles will have enough energy to meet the activation
energy “barrier” – this increases the frequency of successful collisions because
more particles have the ability to collide each second
 Also, when we increase energy, we are increasing the kinetic energy of the
particles, meaning they travel faster and collide with other particles much more
frequently, again this increases the rate of reaction because there is a higher
frequency of successful collisions between reacting particles
 Therefore, to summarise, increasing the temperature increases the rate of
reaction by (a) increasing frequency (b) increasing energy of collisions so more
are classed as “successful”
Effect of Catalysts
 Catalysts increase the rate of reaction without being used up in the reaction (so
are not included in chemical equations)
 They are extremely important because they allow us to carry reactions out
quickly without needing to increase the temperature, thus saving money – they
are also important in biology because enzymes are biological catalysts
 To explain this, we need to look at the idea of activation energy
 Activation energy is the minimum amount of energy required for particles to
collide and react successfully:
 Catalysts increase the rate of reaction by providing an alternative reaction

pathway that has a lower activation energy – basically doing this:
 How does lowering the activation energy increase the rate?

 As the catalyst lowers the activation energy, that means more particles “qualify”
to meet the activation energy barrier – this means more collisions are classed as
“successful” per second. Because more collisions are successful per second, the
rate of reaction increases
 Imagine it being like an exam with a grade boundary. Instead of getting a higher
percentage in order to get a 9 (which is what we do with temperature), we are
lowering the grade boundary (the activation energy) so that more people get a 9
(more particles collide successfully)
Required Practical 5: Rates of Reaction
Aim 1: To investigate the effect of concentration on the rate of reaction by a method

involving a change in turbidity
Hypothesis:
Note: a hypothesis is a proposal that could explain a fact or an observation – this

hypothesis must be testable
Apparatus:
Theory:
 When we react sodium thiosulfate with hydrochloric acid, we produce a solid

sulfur precipitate that makes the solution go opaque and cloudy
 This cloudiness is called turbidity – and we can use it to see how long a reaction
takes to finish
Method:
1) Use a measuring cylinder to put 10cm3 of sodium thiosulfate solution into a

conical flask
2) Place the conical flask onto a printed black cross
3) Add 10cm3 of hydrochloric acid, swirl the solution and start a stopwatch
immediately
4) Stop the clock once we can no longer see the cross through the solution
5) Repeat the experiment using different concentrations of sodium thiosulfate (it is
best to start with the highest concentration because that is the quickest)
6) Repeat the whole experiment and calculate mean values for each concentration
of sodium thiosulfate solution, ensuring it is repeatable (and comparing with
other groups to test reproducibility)
Variables:
 Independent: concentration of sodium thiosulfate

 Dependent: time taken for cross to disappear (rate of reaction)
 Control variables: volume of sodium thiosulfate, volume and concentration of
hydrochloric acid, shape of flask, person doing the experiment, cross thickness
Evaluation:
 Issue is that turbidity is subjective so different people can see the cross for
longer so we may not get the same results, to reduce this, we can gather a mean
from various different groups in order to make sure it is reproducible
 But, because the same size printed cross is used, the problem may not be too
great
Aim 2: To investigate the effect of concentration on the rate of reaction by measuring

the volume of gas produced
Theory:
 In this method, we react magnesium with hydrochloric acid to produce

magnesium chloride and hydrogen – and we will use the volume of hydrogen
produced to measure the rate of reaction
Apparatus:
Method:
1) Use a measuring cylinder to place 50cm3 of hydrochloric acid into a conical flask
2) Attach a bung and delivery tube to the conical flask and place the other end of the
tube into a trough full of water
3) Place an upside-down measuring cylinder filled with water into the trough
4) Take out the bung and drop the magnesium ribbon and immediately put the
bung back on and start a stopwatch
5) As hydrogen is produced, it will be trapped in the measuring cylinder. Every ten
seconds, measure the volume of hydrogen gas in the measuring cylinder and
continue until no more hydrogen is given off
6) Repeat experiment with different concentrations of hydrochloric acid
Results:
 Both experiments show that the greater the concentration of a chemical in a

reaction, the faster the reaction takes place
 Because we can see the same result shown by the two different methods, we can
say that the finding is reproducible
Equilibrium and Reversible Reactions
 Most reactions only have a single arrow, telling us that the reaction only goes
forward and that the products cannot break down or combine again to form the
reactants
 However, in some reactions, the products of the reaction can react again to
produce the original reactants, these are called reversible reactions and we can
identify them because they have the distinct reversible arrow:
 So, here, the ammonium chloride can thermally decompose to form ammonia
and hydrogen chloride – and the ammonia and hydrogen chloride can combine
to form ammonium chloride
 Now, we can change the direction of reversible reactions by changing the
conditions. In the case of the reaction above, we increase the forward reaction by
heating it, and increase the reverse reaction by cooling it down
 In a reversible reaction, one reaction will be exothermic and the other

endothermic in the opposite direction
 The same amount of energy will be transferred in each case
 For example:
 The forward reaction is endothermic, that means that, if we heat it, the forward
reaction will take place because we are putting energy into the reaction
 If we then add water to anhydrous copper sulfate, the reaction will get hot,
telling us that it is exothermic
 Now, if we had a reversible reaction taking place in a closed system (nothing can
escape), the forward and reverse reactions will eventually reach a point where
they are taking place at exactly the same rate
 At this point, the reaction has reached equilibrium and the concentrations of
reactants and products remains constant because the rates of forward and
reverse reactions are equal
 At equilibrium, both reactions are still taking place but they happen at the same
rate so cancel each other out and there is no net change in concentrations of
reactions and products
 One thing to point out, is that the concentrations at equilibrium are not
necessarily the same as each other. So we might have 60% reactants and 40%
products – as long as these concentrations remain constant, the reaction is at
equilibrium, it does not have to be an even split
 But, when we have the different concentrations, the position of equilibrium

changes
 So, if we had lots of products, and a low yield of reactants, the position of
equilibrium lies to the right – if we had a high yield of reactants and a relatively
low yield of products, equilibrium lies to the right – and this position of
equilibrium will change depending on the conditions
Le Chatelier’s Principle
 Le Chatelier’s Principle states that, if we change the conditions of a reversible

reaction, the position of equilibrium will shift to try and counteract that change
 So, if we increase the temperature, it will shift equilibrium to try to decrease the
temperature again
 If we increase the pressure, it will shift equilibrium to try to decrease the
temperature again
 If we increase the concentration of reactants, it will shift equilibrium to try to
decrease the concentration of reactants again
 To best see Le Chatelier’s principle taking place, we will use the Haber Process as
an example:
 Because the overall energy change is -92kJ/mol for the forward reaction, recap
from paper 1, it means that the forward reaction is exothermic because more
energy is released during bond making in the products than energy absorbed
during bond breaking in the reactants. If forward is exothermic, reverse is
exothermic:
 Ok, so lets say we increased the temperature, what effect would this have on the
position of equilibrium?
 According to Le Chatelier’s Principle, if we increase the temperature, the system
will shift equilibrium to try to decrease the temperature. So, if we increase the
temperature, the reverse reaction would take place at a faster rate so that the
equilibrium lies to the left. This way, the endothermic reaction will happen at a
faster rate, absorbing more heat energy, and this decreases the temperature of
the system back down
 This means that the yield of hydrogen and nitrogen will increase
 Conversely, if we decrease the temperature, in order to counteract this change
and increase the temperature again, the exothermic reaction will take place at a
faster rate to release heat energy. This causes the equilibrium to lie to the right,
causing an increase in temperature to counteract the change and a higher yield
of ammonia can be seen
 We can also apply this to changing the pressure of the sealed system
 If we increase the pressure, according to Le Chatelier’s principle, the system will
try to counteract that change and decrease the pressure
 Because there are fewer gas molecules (2) in the products (on the right hand
side) in comparison to the reactants (4), increasing the forward reaction
decreases the pressure. That means that, if we increase the pressure, the forward
reaction will take place at a faster rate to produce more ammonia, because there
are less gas molecules. This will counteract the increase in pressure and cause
equilibrium to lie to the right and yield of ammonia increases
 If we decrease the pressure, the reverse reaction would take place at a faster rate
because there are more gas molecules on the left meaning that, having the
equilibrium lie to the left causes an increase in pressure that counteracts the
decrease. This means that more hydrogen and nitrogen are produced (higher
yield)
 We can think of the same concept but with concentration, which is the simplest
part of Le Chatelier’s principle
 Basically, if we increase the concentration of nitrogen, then the system would try
to counteract that change by making the forward reaction take place at a faster
rate so that equilibrium lies to the right and more ammonia is produced which
reduces the concentration of nitrogen
 In more general terms, if the concentration of a reactant is increased, more
products are formed until equilibrium is reached again and if concentration of a
product is decreased, more reactants will react until equilibrium is reached again
Alkanes and Crude Oil
 Molecules containing only carbon and hydrogen atoms are called hydrocarbons
 The simplest homologous series of hydrocarbons are the alkanes. Homologous
series is a series of hydrocarbons with similar properties and that react in a
similar way
 Methane, ethane, propane, butane:
 The general formula for alkanes is CnH2n+2

 You need to memorise the structures of the first 4 alkanes but it’s common sense
really that if you want to find out what the 10th hydrocarbon looks like it would
have 10C and 22H
 Alkanes are called saturated compounds because it has no double bonds (this
comes from the fact that it is using all of its electrons to bond to as many atoms
as possible)
 Note: these bonds between carbon and hydrogen are all covalent bonds (because
both of the atoms are non-metals)
 Also, when drawing these organic molecules, THROUGHOUT organic chemistry,
you need to make sure that each carbon atom has 4 different bonds to it
 Crude oil is found in rocks and is a finite resource (so if we keep using it, it will
run out)
 It is formed over millions of years from the remains of plankton (sea creatures)
that were buried in mud and sediment, compressed and turned into oil
 Crude oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons including alkanes
Properties of hydrocarbons
 There are 3 key properties of hydrocarbons:
 (1) Viscosity – this tells us the thickness of the fluid, so a more viscous fluid will
flow more slowly (a bit like honey)
 As size of hydrocarbon molecules increases, the viscosity increases; so long chain
hydrocarbons are extremely viscous
 You can remember this like when they’re bigger they’ve got more intermolecular
forces so stick together and are more viscous (not scientific explanation, just
here to help you remember)
 (2) Flammability – this tells us how easily a hydrocarbon combusts
 As size of hydrocarbon molecules increases, the flammability decreases; so short
chain hydrocarbons are extremely flammable
 You can remember this because methane is the main component in natural gas
which is used to heat homes and is used in Bunsen burners – so this high
flammability can only get lower as we get bigger molecules
 (3) Boiling points – the temperature when the liquid turns into a gas
 As size of hydrocarbon molecules increase, boiling point also increases; so short
chain hydrocarbons are gases at room temperature (have a very low boiling
point)
 Again, you can remember this because we know that methane is a gas, so it must
have a very low boiling point – meaning as we get bigger than methane, this very
low boiling point needs to increase
Combustion of Hydrocarbons
 When hydrocarbons are burned (in the presence of oxygen), they release lots of
energy
 When there is enough/plenty of oxygen available, igniting a hydrocarbon leads
to complete combustion whereby hydrocarbons react with oxygen to produce
carbon dioxide and water – and lots of energy released in the process as it is an
exothermic reaction
 Both the hydrogen and the carbon are being oxidised because the hydrogen is
combining with oxygen to form water and the carbon is combining with the
oxygen to form CO2
 We can see complete combustion of hydrocarbons in the equation:
 It’s easier to balance in the order carbon, hydrogen and then any other atoms
Fractional distillation of Crude Oil
 Crude oil is a mixture of many different hydrocarbons including alkanes

 We need to be able to separate out the different hydrocarbons within crude oil
because they all contain different properties useful for different purposes
 Crude oil, without separation, is useless – so we need to separate the
hydrocarbons
 To do this separating, we use fractional distillation:
 (1) Heat the crude oil until it has become a vapour and feed it into the
fractionating column – which is hot at the bottom and cooler at the top
 (2) Each fraction of hydrocarbon gases within the vapour will condense into a
liquid at different points along the fractionating column because they all have
different boiling points – so will condense at different temperatures
 (3) This separates the crude oil into different fractions, each with a similar
number of carbon atoms
 (4) Longer chain hydrocarbons will have higher boiling points (so will condense
into a liquid at the bottom of the column) whilst shorter chain hydrocarbons will
have lower boiling points (so will condense at the top of the column) – but some
won’t condense at all and will remain a gas, producing LPG
 This works because each hydrocarbon or “fraction” of hydrocarbons has a

different boiling point so will condense at different heights of the column
 Examples of fuels produced that we depend for our modern lifestyle that are
produced from the fractional distillation of crude oil are (in order from top to
bottom of fractionating column): liquefied petroleum gas (camping stoves),
petrol (cars), kerosene (jet fuel), diesel oil (larger cars and vans) and heavy fuel
oil (ships)
 All of these substances that we obtain from crude oil are called petrochemicals
 We can use petrochemicals as feedstock (a starting chemical used to make other

chemicals) for the petrochemical industry to help form solvents, lubricants,
polymers and detergents
Cracking
 Cracking is a thermal decomposition reaction whereby longer chain
hydrocarbons are broken down into shorter chain hydrocarbons
 Cracking is important because long-chain hydrocarbons tend to have a much
lower demand (because they tend to be much less flammable than short-chain
hydrocarbons so are less effective as fuels)
 For this reason, there is a high demand for short-chain hydrocarbons – but, there
is an issue: most hydrocarbons found in crude oil are long-chain hydrocarbons.
So, in order to meet demand and produce a more useful molecule, we crack long-
chain hydrocarbons into shorter ones
 There are two ways we can carry out cracking:
 (1) Catalytic cracking – high temperature and a catalyst
 (2) Steam cracking – high temperature and steam
 In both types of cracking, we must heat the long-chain hydrocarbon until it boils
and becomes a gas before we carry out the cracking
 In catalytic cracking, we pass the hydrocarbon vapour over a hot catalyst causing
the long-chain hydrocarbon to split into two or more shorter hydrocarbons
 In steam cracking, we mix the hydrocarbon vapour with steam and heat it to a
very high temperature, again, in order to split it into two or more shorter
hydrocarbons
 When a long-chain alkane undergoes cracking, a shorter alkane and an alkene
are produced:
 The shorter-chain alkane could now be used for fuels because it is flammable
 Alkenes are another homologous series of hydrocarbons
 The difference between alkanes and alkenes is that alkenes have a double bond
(C=C) whereas alkanes only have single bonds – this means that alkenes are
classed as unsaturated molecules whereas alkanes are saturated
 This unsaturated feature of alkenes makes it more reactive because this double
bond can open up and bond to 2 other atoms
 This means that alkenes (because they are unsaturated and thus very reactive)
are able to react with bromine in bromine water – hence this is the test for
alkenes
 If we add bromine water to a solution and it turns colourless, that means an
alkene was present because it formed a dibromoalkene which is colourless –
they are able to do this because of the double bond that makes them reactive
 An alkane, however, is saturated so cannot react with bromine, so if it contained
alkanes, the bromine water would remain orange-brown
 Also, the double bond in alkenes means that alkenes can be bonded together to
form polymers because the double bond can break up to form two bonds that
allow the alkene to bond to adjacent molecules – this property makes them
useful
 As well as polymers, alkenes can be used as the starting materials for other
useful chemicals as well
Structure of Alkenes
 Alkenes are another homologous series of hydrocarbons (all have the same
functional group so react in similar ways)
 Alkenes’ functional group is their carbon-carbon double bond (C=C) which
makes them unsaturated molecules
 They are called unsaturated because they have 2 fewer hydrogen atoms than the
alkane with the same number of carbon atoms
 This unsaturated property makes them more reactive than alkanes because that
double bond can open up and bond to adjacent molecules
 Alkenes have the general formula CnH2n so, if we know carbon atoms, we can
calculate number of hydrogen atoms in any alkene
 We need to be able to draw and represent the first 4 alkenes in both their
chemical and displayed formulae:
 Remember that, unlike in carboxylic acids, esters and alcohols, we always

represent alkenes by CnH2n not in any other way, and the same goes for alkanes
 For butene and pentene, there are different isomers (versions) but you don’t
need to worry about that at GCSE, you simply put the double carbon bond
anywhere – as long as each carbon only has 4 bonds, you’ll get the marks
Reactions of Alkenes
 The double bond in all alkenes allows them to undergo (addition) reactions
where the carbon-carbon double bond opens up, allowing it to bond to 2 more
atoms of another molecule – so we can add other molecules to the alkene to
produce a molecule that only contains single carbon-carbon bonds
 The main 4 reactions of alkenes you need to know about are reactions with
hydrogen, water, halogens and in combustion
 (1) If we react an alkene with hydrogen gas (in the presence of a nickel catalyst
and heat), common sense, it will form an alkane because the double bond will
break apart to bond with the 2 extra hydrogen atoms to form the alkane
counterpart which does not have a double bond (saturated):
 (2) We can also react alkenes with water in the presence of a catalyst and high
temperatures (so that it becomes water vapour) to produce an alcohol because,
again, the double bond breaks apart to react to the H and OH to form an OH
functional group and an extra hydrogen atom
 Here, we need a catalyst, high temperatures AND high pressures
 Again, the alcohol will be saturated and contain no double bonds

 This is actually one of the ways we can industrially produce ethanol, this reaction
is reversible in reality so any unreacted ethene gas is recycled back into the
reactor like hydrogen and nitrogen in the Haber process
 Obviously, it is an alcohol due to its functional group of -OH
 Recap: functional group is the part of a molecule that determines how it reacts
 (3) We can also react alkenes with halogens (including chlorine, bromine and
iodine)
 This is extremely similar to the reaction with hydrogen except that it doesn’t
require a catalyst or temperature or pressure
 The most common example is reacting ethene with bromine to form
dibromoethane (which is colourless) – so, as bromine is used up, alkene causes
bromine water to change from orange to colourless (this is the test for alkenes)
 The two halogen atoms have added across the double bond, making it a single
bond
 (4) Much like when we combust alkanes, when we combust alkenes, we produce
carbon dioxide and water
 However, combusting an alkene in air also produces unburnt carbon particles
due to incomplete combustion – this means that, when we combust an alkene in
air, it burns with a smoky flame and, in addition to carbon dioxide and water,
carbon monoxide and carbon are produced
 Obviously, in a large amount of oxygen, alkenes would combust completely in
oxygen to only produce water and carbon dioxide, but, in the case of air, some
incomplete combustion also takes place
Alcohols
 Just like alkanes and alkenes, alcohols are another homologous series of organic
compounds (not hydrocarbons because they contain oxygen)
 They look identical to alkanes except the fact that they have an –OH functional
group instead of one of the hydrogens – that is how you should remember how
to draw them: alkane but replace one hydrogen with OH
 They all end in -ol instead of -ane
 You need to know the chemical and displayed formulae of the first 4 alcohols
(just like in all homologous series in organic chemistry GCSE):
 Because these have a distinct functional group that can be seen in a chemical
formula, unlike alkanes and alkenes which can only be seen in displayed
formulae, you need to represent it in the “full” way
 That’s to say that we take each carbon atom individually and see what it is
reacted to from left to right
 So, for ethanol, we do CH3 then CH2OH and just put them together
 If you do not show the functional group in the chemical formula, you will not get
the marks
 Always place the functional group at the end of the chemical formula and assume
that the isomer is the ones shown above
 As we’ve seen in the reactions of alkenes topic, we can produce alcohols like
ethanol by reacting an alkene with water (in the form of steam) in a process
called hydration which requires high pressure, high temperature and a catalyst
 Hydration of ethene produces a high yield of ethanol but, this reaction requires a
high temperature and so lots of energy – hence, making it very expensive and
less cost-effective. Also, ethene comes from non-renewable crude oil
 Instead, we can produce ethanol by fermenting sugar. Here, we start with a sugar
solution like glucose and mix it with yeast
 At 30OC, anaerobic conditions and in the presence of yeast, glucose will break
down to form ethanol and carbon dioxide
 The low temperature means not a lot of energy is required and, also, the sugar
comes from plants hence is a renewable resource
 The only downside of producing ethanol by fermentation is that the product is an
aqueous solution of ethanol so, to extract ethanol, we need to carry out
distillation which requires heat energy
 The ethanol can then be used as a fuel, a solvent or in an alcoholic drink
 Alcohols, unlike alkenes, are very flammable so undergo complete combustion

when burned in air
 This means, like pretty much all complete combustion reactions, they produce
carbon dioxide and water:
 When balancing combustion equations of alcohols, we always start by balancing

the Carbon atoms, then the hydrogen atoms then the oxygen atoms (CHO)
 Side Note: Alcohols are soluble in aqueous solutions and produce neutral (pH7)
solutions
 Also, if we add an oxidising agent (like acidified potassium dichromate) to an
alcohol, common sense-ish, we produce a carboxylic acid and water:
 When making a carboxylic acid, the -ol in the alcohol is replaced with an -oic acid
in the name
 When we react alcohols like ethanol with sodium, we produce sodium ethoxide
and hydrogen gas. Hence, we would observe effervescence in this reaction of
hydrogen gas
Carboxylic Acids
 Carboxylic acids are another homologous series of organic compounds

 They all have the functional group -COOH, hence you must show this when
writing a chemical formula
 The first 4 carboxylic acids are:
 Again, like in alcohols, we only use the full, expanded version of chemical
formulae when representing carboxylic acids, so as to show the COOH functional
group
 Carboxylic acids are weak acids meaning that, when dissolved in aqueous
solution, they only partially ionise
 This means that not all of the carboxylic acid molecules will dissociate and
produce H+ ions meaning that a relatively low concentration of H + ions are
produced in comparison to a strong acid, hence has a higher pH than a strong
acid of the same concentration
 We can represent this through a reversible reaction:
 We can react carboxylic acids with metal carbonates

 Like we already know from paper one, an acid + a metal carbonate produces a
salt, water and carbon dioxide
 This is the same for carboxylic acids:
 In the salt, which is an ionic compound, the bond between the oxygen and the
metal atom will not be covalent, but ionic. This means that we need to represent
this using negative and positive symbols
 Another important reaction for carboxylic acids are those with alcohols
 When we react a carboxylic acid with an alcohol, we make a molecule called an
ester as well as water
 Esters are often really useful molecules because they have a pleasant smell and
are often used in foods
 An example of one of these reactions is ethanoic acid with ethanol to produce
ethyl ethanoate:
Addition Polymerisation
 A polymer is formed by joining lots of small, identical repeating units called

monomers
 There are two different types of polymers: addition polymers and condensation
polymers
 These are formed by 2 different reactions: addition polymerisation and
condensation polymerisation
 In an addition polymer, the monomer will always be an alkene (this makes sense
because alkenes have a double bond so can open it up to react with adjacent
alkene molecules to form the polymer)
 Ethene forms poly(ethene), propene forms poly(propene) etc.
 The repeating unit of the polymer will have a single bond whereas the alkene
monomer will have a double C=C bond because this bond has opened up to react
to an adjacent monomer
 We can represent the displayed formula of the monomers and repeating units of
addition polymers:
 So, to write out the repeating unit of the polymer, we need to open up the double
bond so that it goes through the brackets, and place an “n” in the bottom right
hand corner (where n represents a large number)
 As we can see, in addition polymers, the repeating unit has the same atoms as the
monomer, because no other molecules are formed during addition
polymerisation (so the atoms cannot simply be created or destroyed) – except
obviously it contains a single bond
Condensation Polymerisation
 Just like addition polymers, condensation polymers are also made from
monomers (molecules that repeatedly join together to form the polymer)
 However, in condensation polymers, the monomers are not alkenes (which are
the monomers for addition polymers)
 When the monomers of condensation polymers react, small molecules are lost
such as water – this means that the repeating unit of the polymer and the
monomer molecule itself have different numbers of atoms (which isn’t the case
in an addition polymer)
 During condensation polymerisation, we start off the reaction with 2 different
monomers
 Each of these monomers will have 2 of the same functional groups (for example,
diols [that have 2 -OH functional groups] and dicarboxylic acids [that have 2 -
COOH functional groups])
 For example, we can react ethanediol with hexanedioic acid to make a
condensation polymer:
 However, instead of drawing all of the atoms involved, we can draw boxes
instead of the irrelevant atoms, so that we are only showing the two functional
groups of each monomer:
 This makes it more clear what is happening
 Previously, we saw, in the carboxylic acids topic, that reacting a carboxylic acid
with an alcohol produces an ester and water
 This is the same principle here
 We are going to react the diol with the dicarboxylic acid to produce an ester and
water:
 This is the principle of condensation polymerisation

 Obviously, the -COO we form from removing the 2 hydrogen and 1 oxygen atoms
forms the ester link
 The ester produced also has a functional group at each end so can also react in
condensation reactions to form a polyester
 To make a polyester, we would keep adding more molecules to either end of this
ester repeating unit – we do so by removing another set of H 2O to form the
repeating unit:
 This process allows us to produce a long polymer called a polyester

 The reason we have 2nH2O is because we remove one set of H2O when forming
the ester link, and then another set of H2O when forming a polyester:
Naturally-occurring polymers
 Glycine is an example of an amino acid and it has this structure:
 You apparently need to know the structure of this

 All amino acid molecules have two different functional groups: the amino group
(NH2) and the carboxyl group (-COOH)
 We can also represent glycine through the chemical formula H2NCH2COOH
 Because amino acid molecules have two different functional groups (the amino
and carboxyl groups), they can react together to form condensation polymers by
condensation polymerisation
 So, we can react 2 glycine molecules together by condensation polymerisation:
 We can tell that a condensation polymer is formed because water (a small

molecule) is produced
 We can form a polymer by reacting more glycine molecules to the molecule

formed, again, by condensation polymerisation
 Now, a condensation polymer made up of the same repeating unit (amino acid) is
called a polypeptide. Hence, when we react lots of glycine molecules together in a
condensation polymerisation reaction, we form a glycine polypeptide
 However, if we have more than one different types of amino acids reacted by
condensation polymerisation, we form a condensation polymer called a protein
 DNA is also an example of a naturally-occurring polymer and it encodes the

genetic instructions needed for all living organisms to develop and function
 DNA consists of two polymer chains spiralled together in a shape called a double
helix
 DNA is made up from monomers called nucleotides
 There are 4 different types of nucleotide monomer in DNA: A, T, G, and C with
each of these being a different base at the end of the nucleotide
 Proteins (and polypeptides) are also polymers of amino acids
 Starch and cellulose are both polymers of glucose monomers (they’re called
polysaccharides whilst glucose is a monosaccharide)
Purity and Formulations

 A pure substance, in chemistry, is a single element or compound, not mixed with
any other substance – outside of chemistry, we usually refer to purity being
when nothing has been added to it, so it is in its natural state
 The easiest way to test whether a substance is CHEMICALLY pure or not is by
heating it and measuring its boiling point and melting point
 A pure substance always melts and boils at a fixed temperature
 Impure substances melt and boil over a range of temperatures
 For example, pure water would show a heating graph like this:
 Since the substance has a fixed melting point of 0OC and a fixed boiling point of
100OC, we know that this substance must be pure
 However, for a mixture (an impure substance), we get a graph like this:
 Here, the substance is melting and boiling over a range of different temperatures,
showing us that this is an impure mixture
 Since the required practical for water purity has been removed from the
specification, this is the ONLY test for water purity you need to know of
 You can check what substance it really is by comparing the melting or boiling
point to a database
 Impurities in the sample tend to LOWER melting point and increase melting
range of substance
 They also INCREASE the boiling point and the sample boils over a range of
temperatures
 A formulation is a complex mixture that has been designed as a useful product –

and contains carefully measured quantities of the different components to
produce the required properties
 There are many examples of formulations including fuels, cleaning products,
paints, medicines, alloys, fertilisers and food
 PREDICTION: a question describing a certain substance and asking “what type of
substance is this?” (1) and you have to say “why, it’s a formulation of course!”
Chromatography
 Chromatography is a type of physical separation technique whereby we can

separate different substances in a mixture based on their solubilities
 Remember, chromatography is a physical process that does not involve chemical
reactions, and no new substances are made
 To carry out chromatography, we take a piece of chromatography paper and
draw a pencil line at the bottom (must be a pencil so that it does not dissolve in
the solvent)
 We then place two dots of the mixture using a capillary tube or, if it is a pen, just
draw a dot of ink
 Place the bottom of the paper into a solvent (e.g., water, ethanol, etc.) but so that
it does not touch the pencil line
 The solvent will travel up the paper and the ink will dissolve in it which are
carried up the paper with it
 The paper is called the stationary phase (as it does not move) and the solvent is
the mobile phase (because it does move)
 If only one spot is formed, that means that the substance was pure (because it
contained only one type of substance)
 If more than one spot is formed, it means there were different solvents with
different solubilities within it, so it was an impure mixture
 Paper chromatography works because the different chemicals have different
solubilities – therefore, they are each attracted to the stationary phase to a
different extent
 A more soluble substance will travel further up the page because it is more
attracted to the mobile phase and less attracted to the stationary phase – and a
less soluble substance will travel lower up the paper because it is more attracted
to the stationary phase and less attracted to the mobile phase
 A pure chemical produces a single spot in ALL solvents, whilst chemicals in a
mixture may separate into different spots, or even not separate at all, depending
on the solvent
 So, if you get a question about how can we make SURE that this substance is pure
using chromatography, you need to respond by saying test it with a range of
solvents
 Now, once we have carried out the chromatography, we can use the distances
travelled by the spot and the solvent to actually identify exactly what the
substance is
 To do so, we need to calculate Rf values
 The Rf value is a ratio calculated by the equation:
distance moved by substance
 Rf =
distance moved by solvent
 Since Rf values are ratios, if you get a value over 1, or over 100%, then you
flipped your fraction
 We can then look this Rf value up in a database and match it to the solvent used
to get that Rf value, to identify what chemical it is
 If some Rf values show several chemicals, you may need to repeat the
experiment using a different solvent
 Also, if this chemical has never been analysed before, then there will not be an Rf
value on the database
 I actually predict Rf values to be a 2 or 3-mark question on Chemistry Paper 2
Identification of Gases
 To test for hydrogen: place a burning splint near an open end of the test tube of
the gas, if it makes a squeaky pop sound, it must be hydrogen
 To test for oxygen: place a glowing splint inside a test tube of the gas – if oxygen
present, the splint will relight
 To test for carbon dioxide, we bubble the gas through limewater – if it goes
cloudy, carbon dioxide is present
 To test for chlorine: we pass the gas over damp litmus paper, which it should
bleach the litmus paper white if chlorine present
Required Practical 7: Identifying Ions
Testing for Positive Ions
 Scientists often need to identify unknown compounds and some of these contain
positively charged metal ions (a positive ion is called a cation)
 One way to identify metal ions is through flame tests, through the following
process:
 (1) Place a small amount of chemical onto a clean nichrome wire (you can clean
the wire by dipping it in some HCL and holding it into a blue roaring flame until it
burns without colour)
 (2) Place the end of this into a blue, roaring Bunsen burner flame
 (3) The colour of the flame produced can be used to work out the metal ion
present
 Lithium (Li+) ions produce a crimson flame (Lick)
 Sodium (Na+) ions produce a yellow flame (Soy)
 Potassium (K+) ions produce a lilac flame (Poll)
 Calcium (Ca2+) ions produce an orange-red flame (Calor)
 Copper (Cu2+) ions produce a green flame (Cog)
 The issue with using flame tests to identify ions in a compound is that the colour
of a flame test is difficult to distinguish, especially if there is a low concentration
of the metal compound
 Also, if there is a mixture of different metal ions, this can mask the colour of the
flame
 Instead of doing a flame test, we can use flame emission spectroscopy

 Here, a sample of the metal ion solution is placed into a flame and the light given
out is passed into a spectroscope which converts the light into a line spectrum
 The positions of the lines in the spectrum are specific for a given metal ion – so
the different spectrums can be used to identify the metal ion in the sample
 Flame emission spectroscopy can also tell us the concentration of the metal ion
because the lines become more intense as you increase the concentration
 Flame emission spectroscopy is an example of an instrumental method because

it uses a machine
 Instrumental methods are rapid – e.g., we could use flame emission spectroscopy
to analyse samples more quickly than if we analysed them using flame tests
 Instrumental methods are also more sensitive – so flame emission spectroscopy
will work even on a low concentration of the metal ion/compound
 Instrumental methods are also more accurate – flame emission spectroscopy is
more likely to identify the correct metal ion than a flame test
 We can also use flame emission spectroscopy to find out identities of mixtures of
ions in a solution
 We can also test for certain metal ions using their reaction with sodium
hydroxide solution
 If we had solutions of calcium ions, magnesium ions and aluminium ions and
added sodium hydroxide solution to these, they would all produce a white
precipitate
 But, if we add excess sodium hydroxide solution, then the aluminium precipitate
redissolves and goes clear again
 If we wanted to find out which solution was calcium and which was magnesium
we could then go on to use flame tests or flame emission spectroscopy
 Copper II ions react with sodium hydroxide to form a blue precipitate
 Iron II ions react with sodium hydroxide to form a green precipitate
 Iron III ions react with sodium hydroxide to form a brown precipitate
 We can tell that all of these produce precipitates because they have the state
symbol (s)
 You need to be able to use the ionic equations above to be able to form balanced
equations depending on the compound given in the exam
 Now, when writing ionic equations, and all of them appear to be spectator ions, if
there is a change of state, from aq to s or vice versa, this also counts as a
CHANGE. This means that ions that have changed state, are not spectator ions
and count in the ionic equation
Testing for Negative Ions
 We can test for carbonates, halides (chloride, bromide and iodide) and sulfates –
these are all examples of negatively charged, non-metal ions (a negative ion is
called an anion)
 To test for carbonate ions:
 (1) Add dilute acid to the sample
 (2) The acid reacts with the carbonate to make carbon dioxide (as well as a salt
and water)
 (3) It will effervesce (fizz) but, to prove that the gas given off is CO 2, we bubble it
through limewater. If it turns cloudy, CO2 is present – meaning we started with
the carbonate ion
 To test for halide ions:

 (1) Add dilute nitric acid to the sample (wouldn’t use hydrochloric because we
are testing for chloride, so, even if sample did not have chloride, test would be
positive due to chloride ions in the acid)
 (2) Add dilute silver nitrate (AgNO3) solution
 (3) Halide ions produce a precipitate of silver halide with each halide making a
different coloured precipitate:
- Chloride ions produce white precipitate of silver chloride
- Bromide ions produce cream precipitate of silver bromide
- Iodide ions produce yellow precipitate of silver iodide
 To test for sulfate ions:

 (1) Add dilute hydrochloric acid to the sample (again, we wouldn’t use sulfuric
acid)
 (2) Add barium chloride solution
 (3) If sulfate ions are present, a white precipitate of barium sulfate forms:
 You could be asked to identify an ion or compound from the results of different
tests – ionic compounds are made up of positive ions (cations) and negative ions
(anions) so if you want to identify the compounds, you need to work out what
both ions are:
Composition and evolution of Earth’s atmosphere
 In the atmosphere today, around 80% of the atmosphere is nitrogen, 20%

oxygen and mall proportions of various other gases like carbon dioxide, water
vapour and noble gases such as argon
 This composition has stayed constant for around 200 million years but, before
that, there were huge changes
 The Earth is around 4600 million years old so scientists cannot be certain about
the early atmosphere so all of this is a theory
 During the first billion years of the Earth’s life, there was intense volcanic activity
which released gases that formed the atmosphere – these gases included water
vapour and carbon dioxide
 As the Earth cooled, the water vapour released by the volcanic activity
condensed to form the oceans
 As volcanoes released CO2, in the early stage, the atmosphere consisted mainly of
carbon dioxide with virtually no oxygen
 This means that the Earth’s early atmosphere would have been very much like
the atmospheres of Mars and Venus today (because of the high CO2
concentration)
 Now, as well as CO2 and water vapour, volcanoes released gases such as nitrogen
(which gradually built up in the atmosphere) as well as small amounts of
methane and ammonia
 The early atmosphere contained large amounts of carbon dioxide whereas today,
there is only a very small amount of CO2
 Also, the early atmosphere had virtually no oxygen whereas today oxygen makes
approximately 20% of our atmosphere’s composition
 So, how did carbon dioxide levels decrease and how did oxygen levels increase?
 As water vapour from volcanoes condensed to form oceans as the earth cooled,
some of the carbon dioxide dissolved in the oceans to form a weak acid which
reacted with minerals in the sea to form precipitates that, over time, formed
sediments of carbonate rock on the sea bed
 These sediments of carbonates became huge stores of carbon
 Also, some of the CO2 dissolved in the sea was used to make corals and shells of
aquatic organisms like mussels and, when these organisms died, they formed
limestone which also removed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
 As well as this, plants and algae have a role to play
 Around 2.7 billion years ago, the first photosynthetic algae evolved in the oceans.
These photosynthesised, taking in and removing carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere and releasing oxygen as a by-product
 And, as green plants evolved as well, the carbon dioxide levels were decreasing
drastically and oxygen levels were increasing to the degree that animals were
able to evolve and survive
 The carbon dioxide removed from plants and photosynthetic algae by
photosynthesis was then trapped in fossil fuels
 Fossil fuels are formed over millions of years and are non-renewable
 Coal is a fossil fuel formed from the remains of ferns and trees that died in
marshy wetlands where they did not decay due to lack of oxygen or too acidic
conditions which prevent bacteria carrying out decomposition and, as the plant
remains are covered in sediment and compressed, coal forms under high
temperatures and pressures
 Crude oil is formed from plankton (tiny plants and animals found in the sea) and,
again, if oxygen isn’t present, they do not decompose, get trapped under
sediment and heat and sediment cause them to form crude oil
 Natural gas is found near deposits of oil because it is formed from plankton in a
similar way to oil
Atmospheric pollutants
 Fuels release energy when combusted – examples of fuel include coal (used to
generate electricity in power stations) and hydrocarbons (found in petrol and
diesel to power vehicles)
 Most fuels contain carbon and hydrogen atoms and, when these fuels are
combusted, the carbon and hydrogen atoms are both oxidised (reacted with
oxygen) in the air
 An example of a combustion reaction is the one with methane (found in natural
gas):
 As we can see, the carbon atom has been oxidised to form carbon dioxide and the
hydrogens oxidised to form water (vapour)
 This process is called complete combustion because there is enough oxygen – we
can tell this because carbon is produced (incomplete has other products like CO
and carbon)
 Carbon dioxide produced from the complete combustion of fuels is an
atmospheric pollutant because it is a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate
change
 In incomplete combustion, however, we produce carbon monoxide when there
isn’t enough oxygen:
 This is dangerous because carbon monoxide is a toxic, odourless, colourless gas

hence is not easily detected
 Other than carbon dioxide, other atmospheric pollutants from fuels include
sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxides
 Some fuels such as coal contain sulfur impurities and, when the coal is burned,
the sulfur atoms are oxidised to produce sulfur dioxide gas
 Oxides of nitrogen are produced inside engines because the temperatures and
pressures are so high that the nitrogen and the oxygen in the air react together to
form nitrous oxides (NOx)
 Both oxides of nitrogen and sulfur dioxide can cause respiratory problems in
humans but, more importantly they react with clouds, dissolving in rainwater to
form acid rain
 Acid rain then destroys trees and corrodes buildings made of limestone
 The last pollutant formed from the combustion of fuels is particulates (these
consist of solid carbon particles and unburned hydrocarbons)
 Particulates can lead to global dimming in the atmosphere (which can affect
rainfall patterns and temperatures) and particulates can damage human health
by increasing risk of heart disease and lung disease
Resources and Sustainability
 We use resources to provide warmth, shelter, food and transport

 Often, these resources are produced by agriculture – modern agriculture allows
us to grow enough things like cotton to meet the needs of the world
 We can also plant trees for timber and fuel (e.g., biofuels like woodchips)
 Often, chemistry replaces the natural resource with a synthetic alternative, for
example, rubber that originally comes from the sap of a tree but we can make our
own using crude oil
 Some resources are finite: they are being used more quickly than they are being
replaced – so they are eventually going to run out
 For example, fossil fuels and metals are a finite resource
 Some resources are renewable because they can be replaced as quickly as they
are being used
 For example, wood, because we can plant trees quickly
 It is important for human activities to be sustainable: we can meet our needs
without preventing the future generations from meeting their needs
 Chemistry plays a big role in the effective utilisation of our resources – artificial
fertilisers allow us to grow more food with the land available, and we can now
produce lots of potable water efficiently, and phytomining and bioleaching help
us to extract metals more efficiently
Potable Water
 Potable (drinking water) must have sufficiently low levels of dissolved salts like
sodium chloride AND cannot have high levels of microbes like bacteria (two main
things that make water potable)
 Pure water, however, contains absolutely no dissolved salts, whereas potable
water only contains a small amount
 In the UK, rainwater provides most of our potable water because it already
contains low levels of dissolved substances/salts
 Rainwater collects in the ground in aquifers but also in lakes, rivers and
reservoirs
 This “fresh” water can then be used to make potable water in the following
process:
 (1) Pass water through filter beds to remove materials like leaves, twigs and
suspended particles
 (2) Water is sterilised to kill microbes that could harm us. In the UK, chlorine is
bubbled into the water to sterilise it, but in other places, ozone and UV are used
 So, remember that fresh water already contains low levels of dissolved
substances, so we actually don't need to do anything to remove these substances,
this is unlike waste water which contains organic compounds that need to be
broken down
 Here, we literally filter out the large bits and then sterilise the microbes
 However, the problem is, in many places, fresh water is scarce so they have to
resort to using salty sea water to produce potable water
 To make this water potable, it needs to undergo desalination whereby the high
levels of dissolved salts are reduced down to an acceptable level
 There are two main processes of desalination: distillation and reverse osmosis
 Distillation involves heating the water until it evaporates and then condensing it
back again
 Reverse osmosis is a form of desalination where the water is passed through

partially-permeable membranes, only allowing water molecules through and not
dissolved salts
 Both of these reduce levels of dissolved minerals but they are very expensive as
they require lots of energy (for heating water in distillation and high pressures in
reverse osmosis)
Waste water treatment
 Waste water from human activity like agriculture and flushing toilets will
contain large amounts of organic molecules from things like urine and faeces – as
well as containing harmful microorganisms
 We need to treat waste water before releasing it back into the environment
(rivers, etc.) and to do this, we use the following process:
 (1) Sewage is screened by passing it through a wire mesh which removes solids
like twigs and also pieces of grit
 (2) It is then allowed to settle in large sedimentation tanks where a semi-solid
sludge is produced and sinks to the bottom and a liquid effluent which remains
at the top of the tank
 (3) The sludge is taken away and drained out of the bottom to be digested by
anaerobic bacteria – in the absence of oxygen, these bacteria will produce biogas
(methane) that can be combusted for electricity. The material that remains after
anaerobic digestion can then be used as fertilisers
 (4) The liquid effluent still contains large amounts of organic molecules and
harmful microorganisms which need to be reduced before releasing it back into
the environment. To do this, we bubble air through the liquid effluent, allowing
aerobic bacteria to multiply and digest the harmful microorganisms and break
down organic molecules in the presence of oxygen
 (5) The liquid effluent can then be safely discharged into the environment (e.g.,
nearby rivers or the sea)
 Note: if there is waste water from industry containing harmful chemicals, we
need to remove these harmful chemicals before we treat this water in general
sewage treatment
 In some parts of the world (not UK), treated sewage is used directly to produce
potable water – but this requires lots of steps of treatment and purification
 The easiest way to produce potable water is to use ground water from aquifers
because it contains the least amount of dissolved solids in it so takes less stages
to treat – once we treat it with chlorine, it is safe to drink
 However, water must be tested carefully for pollution from fertilisers in farms
 Salt water needs to be desalinated to produce potable water and this requires a
great deal of energy and is expensive
 So, aquifers are the easiest source but with salt water and sewage water it is
more difficult to produce potable water
Sludge Effluent
Alternative methods of extracting metals
 An important metal we need is copper because it is used in electronic equipment

(due to its ductility)
 We get copper from copper ores by mining for them
 A metal ore contains enough metal to make it economical to extract the metal
 There’s an issue, though, copper ores are becoming scarce (because they are a
fining resource) – this means that we need to extract copper from low-grade ores
 Low-grade ores only contain a very small amount of copper and therefore it is
harder to economically extract pure copper from a low-grade ore
 There are two methods of extracting copper from a low-grade ore: phytomining
and bioleaching
 (1) Phytomining
 This involves growing plants on land that contains the metal compound that we
want
 The plant absorbs the metal compound from the low-grade ore and concentrate
it into their tissue and it builds up
 The plants are then harvested and burned to produce ash that is rich in copper
(high concentration)
 (2) Bioleaching
 Bioleaching involves the use of bacteria to extract metal compounds from low-
grade ores
 Here, bacteria are mixed with the low-grade ore where they carry out chemical
reactions to produce a solution called a leachate
 This leachate contains the metal compound that we want dissolved in it
 After both bioleaching and phytomining, we have extracted the metal compound
that we want from the low-grade ore, but, we now need to extract the pure metal
from the compound
 We can do this using two methods: displacement or electrolysis
 Displacement is cheap because we can displace the metal using scrap iron – but
this only works for metals less reactive than iron, e.g., copper
 For elements more reactive than iron, we need to use electrolysis which is more
expensive and uses more energy
 Both phytomining and bioleaching allow us to extract metals from low grade
ores and this is important because metal ore resources are limited
 Also, they do not involve digging, transporting and disposing of large amounts of
rock unlike in traditional mining
 Mining and digging quarries destroys habitats and requires the utilisation of
fossil fuels which contribute to climate change – low-grade ores do not need to
be mined in the same way as high-grade ores
 However, these modern extraction methods take a long time (e.g., phytomining
takes ages for plant to take up copper and grow)
Life cycle assessment
 A lifecycle assessment attempts to put a number on the environmental impact of

a product to allow us to compare two different products
 There are 4 main stages we need to assess in an LCA:
 (1) Extracting and processing the raw materials
 Many modern products contain plastics and metals like copper
 Plastics are made from crude oil which first has to be extracted, then transported
to refineries – then it has to be separated, cracked and polymerised to produce
plastics. All of these processes require lots of energy from burning fossil fuels
which leads to climate change
 Extracting metals takes a lot of energy as well because they must be mined and
then transported for processing. The electrolysis and purification of the ore also
require lots of energy and can produce lots of toxic waste products – as does
fractional distillation
 Extracting often also damages the local environment, for example, obtaining
wood needed for paper or mining for metals
 (2) Manufacturing and packaging

 Manufacturing and packaging also require lots of energy and may release
harmful waste products like pollutants such as carbon monoxide or hydrogen
chloride
 (3) Use and operation during its lifetime
 E.g., a toy might need a large number of batteries – so producing batteries
releases a large amount of waste, meaning this is an environmental concern we
need to assess in our LCA
 However, we must also take into account how long it is used for and how many
times it can be re-used – even products that use up lots of energy to produce but
can be used for a long time mean less waste and less raw materials needed in the
long run
 (4) Disposal at the end of its useful life, including transport and distribution
 Many products contain many harmful chemicals which must be disposed of
carefully and this disposal can require a lot of energy
 Also transportation of used products for disposal to landfill or recycling centres
also needs energy
 Taking waste to landfill takes up space, can pollute the land and water – as well
as producing atmospheric pollutants itself
 If material is biodegradable, space taken up is only temporary but non-
biodegradable products like many plastics, may take up to a thousand years to
degrade
 We can also dispose of products using incineration when waste is burnt at very
high temperatures – this cuts down on waste going to landfill and can be used to
generate electricity but can cause air pollution
 An example of a comparative LCA is the comparison of plastic and paper bags

 We can look at this at each of the 4 stages
 Paper bags are made from wood that comes from trees and plastic bags are made
from crude oil
 Crude oil is a finite, non-renewable resource whilst trees are renewable
resources
 Extracting crude oil can be harmful to habitats if there is an oil leak, and so can
removing trees as it removes habitats for important ecosystems
 In terms of processing, both need to be chemically processed and this requires a
large amount of energy and releases waste products like CO2 and harmful
chemicals
 Plastic shopping bags, during their lifetime, are strong and durable – so can be
re-used and usually tend to last a long time
 However, paper bags tear easily, especially when exposed to water, so cannot
easily be re-used and are usually one-use only and then thrown away
 At the end of their lives, both plastic and paper bags must be transported either
for recycling or to landfills. Paper bags are more expensive to transport because
they have a greater density than plastic bags so are heavier
 In terms of disposal, paper bags wins this one because plastic is non-
biodegradable so cannot be broken down by microorganisms whilst paper is
biodegradable, especially when wet
 This means that plastic bags remain in the environment for a long time, affecting
the health of animals and affecting ecosystems – as well as taking space in
landfills
 There is no simple, objective answer about whether paper or plastic bags are
more environmentally-friendly
 Some parts of LCAs are quantifiable: we can measure the amount of water and
energy used and we can measure the production of waste products – but we
cannot always be certain how damaging these are to the environment
 This means that, sometimes, we must make estimates or value judgements which
are inaccurate and can be biased to support claims by advertisers
Ways of reducing the use of resources
 Humans produce lots of materials needed for modern life: glass, metal, building
materials, clay ceramics and plastics
 All of these are produced from finite raw materials that are in limited supply and
getting scarce
 As well as being scarce, extracting these products by quarrying and mining is
very harmful to the environment (destruction of habitats, pollution, dust, etc.)
 It also takes lots of energy to turn the raw materials into useful products – this
energy comes from fossil fuels which are finite, limited, non-renewable and
release CO2 that leads to climate change – couldn’t be worse
 For these reasons, we need to reduce the amount of raw materials we extract
and process – in order to reduce our use of limited resources, energy sources,
waste and environmental damage
 To reduce our need for raw materials, we can re-use and recycle products
 Some products like plastic bags and glass bottles can simply be reused
 Or they can be crushed to produce different bottles
 Some products can be recycled for a different use, e.g., plastic bottles can be re-
used as carpets and fleece jackets
 To recycle metals, we melt them and recast them into different products
 The amount of separation required for recycling will depend on the material and
the properties required of the final product – e.g., some scrap steel can be added
to iron from a blast furnace to reduce amount of iron needed to be extracted
from iron ore
Corrosion and its prevention
 Corrosion is the destruction of materials by chemical reactions with substances

in the environment
 Rusting is an example of corrosion
 We only refer to corrosion as “rusting” when it is in reference to the corrosion of
iron and alloys of iron like steel
 Any other metal, it is simply called corrosion
 The conditions required for corrosion are oxygen and water:
 In first test tube, we have water, but without oxygen because it is boiled which
has removed any dissolved air and the water prevents oxygen diffusing into the
water – it does not rust because air/oxygen is not present
 In the second test tube, the anhydrous calcium chloride doesn’t have any water
in it and but there is air/oxygen present – it does not rust because water is not
present
 In the last test tube bung should be off, but it will rust because there is water and
oxygen/air present
 NOTE: according to spec, we can call it air or (oxygen + water)
 Corrosion is a big problem because it damages materials, and we can prevent

corrosion in several different ways:
 (1) Barrier protection
 Here, we add a layer of something that protects the material underneath
 Grease and paint act to physically prevent the material being exposed to oxygen
and water in the air
 We can also coat the material with a metal in a process called electroplating
whereby electrolysis is used to reduce metal ions onto an iron electrode to coat
the iron with a layer of a different metal that won’t be corroded away, e.g.,
copper
 Aluminium is commonly used and the reason why it doesn’t corrode is because it
has a thin layer of aluminium oxide on its surface (as it naturally reacts with
oxygen) which acts as a barrier to corrosion because aluminium oxide is very
unreactive so protects metal underneath
 The reason aluminium doesn’t corrode completely when exposed to air is

because, unlike hydrated iron oxide, the aluminium oxide layer does not flake
away to expose the rest of the aluminium
 (2) Sacrificial protection
 This is where we add a more reactive metal to the original metal
 Because the metal is more reactive, it will be oxidised instead of the metal we are
protecting
 One way to do this is by galvanisation – this is where we coat a metal with zinc
 Zinc coating adds a barrier method to protect the iron underneath from being
exposed to air and water and, even if the zinc scratches off, it acts as a sacrificial
protection because the zinc is more reactive than the iron so, even if part of the
iron is exposed, the zinc will be oxidised and corrodes instead
Alloys as useful materials
 Alloys are mixtures of a metal and another element – they are very useful
because they are much harder than pure metals
 Alloys are made by melting down pure metals and mixing in other elements to
distort regular layers, etc. paper 1
 There are two alloys of copper you need to know of (bear in mind, this topic and
the next topic are VERY 1 mark/2mark factoids so it is HIGHLY likely that you
will get a question on one of these very annoyingly-specific facts, so learn them):
 Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin
 Bronze is used for statues because it is hard and tends not to corrode
 Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc
 Brass is used for musical instruments because it can be formed into different
shapes, despite being harder than pure copper
 Gold is used for jewellery – but pure gold is too soft so it is alloyed with silver,
copper and zing to make it harder and more useful as jewellery
 The proportion of gold in the alloy is measured in carats
 24 carats = 100% pure gold
 18 carats = 75% pure gold – you get the gist, just do x/24 and multiply by 100
 Another important alloy is steel
 Steels are alloys containing specific amounts of carbon and contain other metals
 High carbon steel is strong but brittle
 Low carbon steel is softer and more easily shaped
 High carbon steel is used to make cutting tools like chisels
 Low carbon steel is used to make car bodies
 There is a problem with using normal steel, it is an alloy of iron so is liable to rust
– to prevent that, we use stainless steel
 Stainless steel (as well as iron and carbon) also contains chromium and nickel –
this type of steel is hard and resistant to corrosion
 Aluminium alloys are low in density so are used in aeroplane bodies
Ceramics, polymers and composites
 A ceramic is a non-metallic solid with a high melting point not made from any
carbon-based compounds. They are good insulators of heat and electricity and
tend to be stiff and brittle
 Vases, tiles and wine glasses are all examples of ceramics
 Ceramics can be made of clay or glass
 Most of the glass that we used is called soda-lime glass
 Soda-lime glass is ideal for windows and bottles
 To make soda-lime glass, we mix together: sand, sodium carbonate and
limestone
 This mixture is then heated in a furnace until it melts and it can then be shaped,
cooled and then solidifies into any shape when it cools
 The issue with our little soda-lime is that it has a relatively-low melting point so
limits its uses
 Borosilicate glass has a higher melting point than soda-lime, so it is useful for
objects that need heating like kitchenware and labware
 Borosilicate glass made by melting a mixture of sand and boron trioxide
 As well as glass, another group of ceramics are clay ceramics (e.g., pottery and
bricks)
 Unlike glass which we make out of various different materials, clay is a mineral
that we find in the ground (think of it in Minecraft terms, you can mine clay
naturally, but you can’t just mine glass)
 When wet, clay can be shaped and then heated in a furnace to harden
 Another important group of materials are composites

 Composites are made by combining two different materials, one embedded in
the other:
 (1) The reinforcement – fibres or fragments of one material
 (2) The matrix/binder – another material that surrounds the reinforcement
 How you can remember which is which – well, reinforced concrete. Reinforced
concrete we know is just concrete REINFORCED by a bit of steel, so concrete is
the matrix and the steel is the reinforcement
 Composites have different properties to the materials in them

 Carbon fibre composites are made up of carbon as the reinforcement and plastic
resin as the matrix
 Carbon fibre composite is strong and light, making it useful for cars or aircraft
parts
 Another example of a composite is reinforced concrete whereby steel bars are
the reinforcement and the concrete is the matrix surrounding it
 Reinforced concrete is extremely strong and is used for constructing buildings
 We can change the properties of the composite by changing the matrix and the
reinforcement
 The properties of polymers depend on the monomer used to make it and the
conditions used during production
 Low-density poly(ethene) is a soft polymer
 But, if we change the conditions, we can produce high-density poly(ethene)
which is much harder
 So, although from the same monomer, different conditions are used to make
them
 We can change the temperature, pressure or catalyst in order to change the
properties of a polymer
 To make LD polyethene, we polymerise ethene with a high pressure and the
presence of oxygen (moderate temp)
 To make HD polyethene, we polymerise ethene with a low pressure and a
catalyst (lower temp)
 Polymers can be thermosetting or thermosoftening

 In thermosetting polymers, there are strong cross-links between different
polymer chains
 These cross-links require lots of energy to break and overcome, so that means it
is difficult to melt thermosetting polymers
 In thermosoftening polymers, there are no cross-links, only weak intermolecular

forces between polymer chains which require very little energy to overcome so it
is easy to melt thermosoftening polymers
 If we cool back the melted thermosoftening polymer, we reform the
intermolecular forces so the polymer goes back to a solid
The Haber Process
 The aim of the Haber process is to produce ammonia

 This is because ammonia can be used to make nitrogen-based (NPK) fertilisers
for farming and increasing crop yields
 It can also be used to make nitric acid
 The equation for the Haber process is:
 The raw materials for the Haber process are nitrogen and hydrogen
 Nitrogen can simply be extracted from the air (as 80% of the air is actually
nitrogen)
 Hydrogen can be produced by reacting methane with steam
 The purified nitrogen and hydrogen that we extract are passed over an iron
catalyst at 450OC and 200atm of pressure
 These conditions cause nitrogen and hydrogen molecules to react to form
ammonia gas – but, because the reaction is reversible, some of the ammonia
breaks back down into nitrogen and hydrogen
 We then cool the ammonia after it is formed to separate it from the nitrogen and
the hydrogen and remove it from the reaction vessel
 Any unreacted nitrogen and hydrogen gas can be recycled back into the reaction
vessel over the iron catalyst – this recycling reduces waste, saves resources and
reduces cost
 Because this is a reversible reaction, we need to make the conditions optimum so

that we increase the yield of ammonia – we can adjust the temperature and the
pressure to shift the position of equilibrium to the right (in order to produce a
greater yield of ammonia)
 Important fact: the forward reaction in the Haber process is exothermic
 This means that, if we decrease the temperature, the system will try to
counteract the change by making the forward exothermic reaction take place
faster and shift the equilibrium to the right so that more energy is released and
decrease in temperature is counteracted – so, a decrease in temperature
increases the yield of ammonia due to Le Chatelier’s principle
 The only issue is that a cool temperature heavily reduces the rate of reaction –
therefore, we need a compromise between the rate of reaction and the position
of equilibrium (yield of ammonia) and this compromise is 450 OC where we get a
relatively fast rate of reaction and a relatively high yield of ammonia
 Also, a high temperature would require lots of energy so is expensive
 Iron catalyst also increases the rate of reaction but DOES NOT affect yield of
ammonia or the position of equilibrium – catalyst is important because,
otherwise we would have to increase the temperature even more to get a higher
rate of reaction, and that would seriously affect yield
 Pressure also affects equilibrium. If we increase the pressure, the system will
counteract the change by shifting the equilibrium to the right – this is because
there are less molecules on the right-hand side so it decreases the pressure to
counteract the change. As equilibrium is shifted to the right, more ammonia is
produced.
 Also, pressure increases the rate of reaction because particles are closer together
and so increases frequency of successful collisions
 The only problem with having a ridiculously high pressure is that it is very
expensive and it can also be quite dangerous
 Again, the compromise for pressure is 200atm so that a relatively high rate of
reaction and yield but also relatively cheaper and less dangerous
NPK Fertilisers
 Fertilisers are critical for modern farming because they contain nutrients and
organic compounds necessary for plant growth
 NPK fertilisers are a group of fertilisers made up of compounds containing
Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium
 Compounds containing these elements improve agricultural productivity,
helping plants to grow larger and more rapidly
 NPK fertilisers are produced in large industrial facilities where different raw
materials are processed together to produce the exact fertiliser required – in fact,
NPK fertilisers are formulations of different salts
 These NPK fertilisers contain the required elements in the proportions and
percentages needed by different plants – so are formulations
 Now, we need to know how the different compounds in NPK fertilisers are
produced
 (1) Nitrogen
 The main compound of nitrogen in NPK fertilisers is ammonium nitrate (a salt
with the formula NH4NO3)
 To make ammonium nitrate, we use ammonia (obtained from the Haber process)
to produce nitric acid
 Once we produce the nitric acid, we react the nitric acid with more ammonia to
make ammonium nitrate (basically we convert ammonia into ammonium
nitrate) – in a neutralisation reaction
 (2) Potassium
 The main compound of potassium in NPK fertilisers is potassium chloride or
potassium sulfate (both of which are salts as well)
 Both potassium chloride and potassium sulfate are mined directly from the
ground without having to undergo any further processing
 (3) Phosphorus
 To produce phosphorus compounds, we mine phosphate rock from the ground
 This phosphate rock can then be chemically processed to be used in fertilisers
 To do this, we treat phosphate rock with nitric acid, sulfuric acid or phosphoric
acid
 (a) treating phosphate rock with nitric acid
 This produces phosphoric acid and calcium nitrate
 Phosphoric acid does contain phosphorus but this cannot be directly added to
plants because its pH is too low, hence we must neutralise it with ammonia to
produce ammonium phosphate that can be used in NPK fertiliser
 (b) treating phosphate rock with sulfuric acid
 This produces a mixture of calcium phosphate and calcium sulfate
 And this mixture, altogether, is collectively known as single superphosphate
which can be used in NPK fertilisers
 (c) treating phosphate rock with phosphoric acid
 This produces triple superphosphate (calcium phosphate) which is another
compound that can be used in NPK fertilisers
 We need to be able to compare the production of fertilisers in industry vs the

production of fertilisers in a lab (e.g., in school)
 To produce ammonium nitrate, we react ammonia with nitric acid (it is a
neutralisation reaction) and, as we saw, this is a source of nitrogen in fertilisers
 In the school lab, we use dilute solutions of ammonia and nitric acid so that it is
safe to work with
 In industry, really concentrated solutions of nitric acid and the ammonia would
be in gas form. This is much more dangerous because the reaction is very
exothermic and the heat produced needs to be safely removed and is often used
in later stages of the fertiliser production process
 In the lab, we produce crystals using a water bath and Bunsen burner, but this
requires lots of heat energy – in industry, the heat released from the exothermic
reaction between nitric acid and ammonia is used for evaporation
 In the lab, we can only produce a small amount of ammonium nitrate in one go in
a process called a batch process
 In industry, there is a continuous (rather than a batch) process of ammonium
nitrate production, so that thousands of kilograms is produced easily
 Don’t get too worried about learning this because we will be given “appropriate
information” when asked to answer a question like this

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Major Topic Low-stakes topic

Atoms, elements and compounds

Mixtures and Separation

 Physical separation techniques are used to separate mixtures only NOT

Development of the model of the atom

The periodic table

 The modern periodic table is arranged into columns called groups

 Before the discovery of protons, neutrons and electrons, scientists attempted to

 The periodic table contains all the known elements (~100)

Metals and Non-metals

 Elements are either metals or non-metals

 Group 0 elements (the noble gases) are very unreactive

 As hydrogen is produced, we see effervescence when alkali metals react with

Group 7 (the halogens)

 As you go down group 7, the halogens become less reactive

 Transition elements can also form coloured compounds

 When a metal reacts with a non-metal, ionic bonding takes place

 There are 3 main properties of ionic compounds:

Properties of small molecules

Giant Covalent Structures

 Giant covalent structures (otherwise known as macromolecules) are similar to

 In graphite, each carbon atom only forms 3 covalent bonds

 Graphene is a sheet of carbon atoms joined in hexagons – basically one layer of

 The network of covalent bonds makes graphene very strong

 Solids have this structure:

 Liquids have this structure:

 In liquids there are relatively weak forces of attraction between particles so

 Gases have this structure:

 Limitations of the particle theory include that:

More Notes on Quantitative Chemistry

 Metals react with oxygen to form metal oxides

 With these two reactions, we

 What determines reactivity (how rapidly a metal reacts)?

Extraction of Metals and Reduction

Oxidation and Reduction in Terms of Electrons

 For instance, Mg  Mg2+ + 2e–

Reactions of Acids with Metals

 There are 3 acids you need to know of:

 Acids produce H+ ions in aqueous solutions (e.g., HCl  H+ + Cl-)

 In aqueous solution, acids ionise to produce H+ ions

 The pH scale tells us how acidic or alkaline a solution is

 We can represent neutralisation with a general ionic equation of:

Strong and Weak Acids

 In aqueous solutions, acid molecules ionise to release H + ions

Required Practical 1: Making Salts

Required Practical 2: Titrations

1) Essentially, what we are aiming to do with a titration, is measure the volume of

 The electrolysis set up is a container with two electrodes connected to a power

Extracting Metals by Electrolysis

Electrolysis of Aqueous solutions

 Aqueous solutions are dissolved in water

Exothermic and Endothermic Reactions

 Exothermic reactions transfer energy from the reacting molecules to the

 Unlike exothermic reactions, endothermic reactions take in energy from the

 However, in both endothermic and exothermic reactions, the energy rises to a

 However, no matter exothermic or endothermic, the overall amount of energy in

Required Practical 4: Temperature Changes

 We will be adding increasing volumes of sodium hydroxide solution to

 Independent variable: Volume of sodium hydroxide

1) Use a measuring cylinder to measure 30cm3 of dilute hydrochloric acid and