Determination of Ka and Kb Equilibrium Constants by pH Measurements: a Computer Simulation by LabVIEW

TCE

The Chemical Educator

ISSN: 1430-4171 (electronic version)

Table of Contents

Abstract Volume 15 (2010) pp 121-125

Determination of K_a and K_b Equilibrium Constants by pH Measurements: a Computer Simulation by LabVIEW

Alessandro Belletti, Renato Borromei* and Gianluigi Ingletto

Dipartimento di Chimica Generale ed Inorganica, Chimica Analitica e Chimica Fisica, Viale G.Usberti 17/A - 43100 - Parma – Italy; borromei@unipr.it
Received April 15, 2009. Accepted September 2, 2009.

Published: 17 Feburary 2010

Abstract. Results of the development of a program named TITPOTSIM, created using the National Instruments LabVIEW software, are reported in this paper. The program runs on a Pentium computer with a Microsoft Windows OS versions 2000/XP/VISTA. The program allows a computer simulation of an acid-base potentiometric titration and gives the opportunity to concentrate on the multiple problems related to the experiment, before execution in the real laboratory. The TITPOTSIM.EXE program and a PDF version of the instruction manual, TITPOTSIMINSTR.PDF, are enclosed as supporting material, together with the program TITPOT.EXE ( and the related TITPOTINSTR.PDF manual), that allow the user to carry out the real titration in the laboratory, using a similar graphic interface.

Key Words: Computers in Chemistry; physical chemistry; computer-based learning; equilibrium; student-centered learning ; electrochemistry, analytical chemistry

(*) Corresponding author. (E-mail: borromei@unipr.it)

Article in PDF format (561 KB) HTML format

Supporting Materials:

The program TITPOTSIM.EXE and a PDF version of the instructions, TITPOTSIMINSTR.PDF, that explains all the necessary operations to simulate the titration and to elaborate the data in detail, are available as supplemental material. The program TITPOT.EXE and a PDF version of the instructions, TITPOTINSTR.PDF, that explains the procedure utilized to carry out the experience in the laboratory, are also available (6.7 MB)