Physical chemistry has as its aim the development of an understanding of the structure, properties and transformations of matter, from bulk behaviour down to the atomic level. It is the role of the physical chemist to collect, collate and analyse experimental data from all branches of chemistry and to construct predictive models. As such, physical chemistry underlies much of modern science and it drives advances in a very wide range of fields. Building on information and concepts from chemistry, physics and mathematics, physical chemistry contributes to and is stimulated by areas such as medicine, molecular biology, biochemistry, molecular engineering, chemical engineering, materials science and earth sciences.
The topics covered are chemical reaction kinetics (reaction rates and rate laws, measurements and uses of rate constants, elementary versus complex reactions, steady state and rate limiting methods, effect of temperature on reaction rate, introduction to collision theory and transition-state theory, applications of kinetics, especially enzyme kinetics), molecular spectroscopy (introductory concepts, rotational, vibrational and electronic processes, applications), fluids and ionic solutions (conductance and transport, viscosity, diffusion), and polymers and other macromolecules (characterisation techniques, synthesis). Spectroscopic techniques and chemical kinetics receive particular attention in the laboratory component of this unit.
