Calculus Project Ideas: Chemistry Applications

[lifesciencesam]

Hello I am in a life science calculus two class and in lieu of a final we can do a project. The problem I am having is coming up with a project. I was just wondering if anyone had any good ideas for applying calculus to chemisty. I have attempted to do something with titrations but the function I came up only worked under one circumstance. Any suggestions are welcomed.
Thanks,
Sam

 

[gravenewworld]

do some rate laws.

given a reaction say aA+bB----> cC

the rate of the reaction r=-1/a*d[A]/dT=-1/b d/dT=1/c*d[C]/dT

where d[]/dT is the rate of change in the concentration of the starting materials or the products.



since you are in the biological sciences, you could easily relate this to the study of enzymes which are extremely important in living organisms. You could study a chemical reaction that occurs in a biological organism, like what happens to ethanol when humans consume it, try to come up with a rate law, and talk about how things like how liver enzymes affect the rate of the metabolism of ethanol into vinegar. enzyme kinetics are related to chemical kinetics and have been studied a lot so you shouldn't have that much trouble trying to find info on it.

 

[Shadowz]

Hello I am in a life science calculus two class and in lieu of a final we can do a project. The problem I am having is coming up with a project. I was just wondering if anyone had any good ideas for applying calculus to chemisty. I have attempted to do something with titrations but the function I came up only worked under one circumstance. Any suggestions are welcomed.
Thanks,
Sam

What "kind" of math (calculus) you want to use in your project?
PDE is often used in biology to solve the problem about spcies vs species, predator vs. prey ... That's pretty cool when you can add some factors like death, diseases, food, environment into the equation and observe what's going on, how the populations of species change ...
Titration is also intersting. You can titrate a weak acid/base, then draw the graph. The take first derivatives/2nd derivatives to find end-points? That what's the sophomore/junior students usually do in quatitative lab.

Hope that there is some ideas that you are interested.

 

[sicjeff]

enzyme kinetics is always a fun project.