Bachelor Courses

Mandatory:

Physical Chemistry – 9 ECTS

Physical chemistry is treated from a classical, macroscopic, as well as from a molecular, microscopic point of view. The macroscopic aspects include thermodynamics, kinetics, and transport properties of small molecules and macromolecules. The molecular aspects include basic quantum chemistry, chemical bonding and reactivity, molecular symmetry, and molecular spectroscopy (in particular optical spectroscopy).

Instrumental Analytical Chemistry - 3 ECTS

Analytical chemistry is treated from an experimental point of view and includes safety issues, different analytical procedures and the handling and reliability of data. The laboratory part includes techniques such as spectrophotometry, electrochemical methods, chromatographic methods and flow injection

Applied Spectroscopy - 3 ECTS

The course concentrates on identification of organic compounds using 26 spectroscopic methods. The main focus is on 1D NMR. The nuclei investigated are 1H, 13C and to some extent 15N, but nuclei such as 31P and 19F are also briefly treated. In addition to NMR, interpretation of EI (electron impact) mass spectra is discussed in detail and the main features of IR are briefly treated.

The focus is on how to use a combination of these techniques to identify compounds based on spectroscopic data.

Master Courses

Mandatory:

Organic Chemistry - 7,5 ECTS

Organic chemistry is presented in a systematic way on the basis of the principles of organic reaction mechanisms connected with the reactivities of all common functional groups of organic compounds. The identification of reaction products on the basis of knowledge about their preparation, physical properties, and NMR and IR spectra plays a very important part in the theoretical exercises, where also structurally conditioned phenomena such a stereoisomerism, geometrical isomerism, tautomerism, and structural dynamics in general, are thoroughly treated. The laboratory exercises are there to introduce the principles of organic synthesis in practice.

Inorganic Chemistry - 7,5 ECTS

Inorganic chemistry is treated systematically from a periodic table of the elements point of view. Relevant models are utilized in order to describe the properties of the compounds. Emphasis is put on representative d-block elements, while the f-block elements are only treated superficially. The course is based upon the knowledge of basic inorganic chemistry including its analytical dimension. The laboratory exercises illustrate synthesis and electron-spectroscopic properties of simple coloured coordination compounds. The PC-exercise deals with the stability of coordination compounds.

Synthesis - 3 ECTS

The course is a "learning-by-doing" course, during which the student is trained to obtain an acceptable familiarity with the handling of organic chemicals and organic laboratory equipments. An important aspect of the course is to learn how a reaction (as observed in the laboratory) can be interpreted in terms of a real or supposed reaction mechanism (as formulated in writing), and vice versa. Particular attention is paid to the principles of safety in relation to working in an organic synthesis laboratory.

Elective Courses:

Computational Chemistry

The course will start with a presentation of basic principles in the field of molecular modelling and computational chemistry and an introduction to current software packages (HyperChem, Gaussian). The course ends with a 'mini-project', where each student attempts to solve a particular chemical or spectroscopic problem by using computational chemistry tools.

Bioorganic Chemistry

The course is teaching central subjects such as amino acids, peptides and proteins, carbohydrates, nucleic acids and lipids. The emphasis is on understanding structure and reactivity. Bio-synthesis is also touched briefly. A strong connection to general organic chemistry and its principles will be seen. Compounds and concepts from biochemistry will also be included in the course. Spectroscopic methods (NMR and IR) will be used to understand structure.

Microcalorimetry

The course will include an introduction to calorimetric measuring principles, typical sources of errors and optimization strategies. We will also touch briefly upon underlying thermodynamic theories. The major part will be lectures and student work on case-stories, in which Calorimetry is applied to different research fields.

Biophysical Chemistry

The course will focus on macromolecules and principles of the experimental methods which are used to characterize them. These methods include spectroscopy, spectrometry, chromatography and thermodynamic- and kinetic methods. The course provides a brief introduction to the different classes of biological molecules and their structural hierarchy, purification and structural analysis.

Bioinorganic Chemistry

The course will deal with a number of examples of metal ion interactions with biologically relevant molecules and will go into detail with a few cases. Breathing will be taken as an example. The course will draw upon some biochemistry and empirical facts, concepts and models in inorganic chemistry and expand coordination chemistry models and methods to be used in more complicated systems.

2 D NMR

The theme is 2D NMR techniques for assignment of 1H and 13C NMR spectra (13C is an example and could as well be other nuclei such as 15N, 19F, 31P etc). Techniques such as COSY, TOCSY, INEPT, INADEQUATE, HETCOR and others are treated and exemplified. In addition, techniques for structure determination of bio molecules such as NOESY and ROESY are discussed. The approach is practical, but some techniques will also be treated theoretically.

Practical details regarding recording of spectra will be discussed as well as interpretation of spectra.

LC-MS

The most important modern ionizations methods, the theory of different mass analyzators, molecular weight and sequence determinations of peptides and proteins, a LC-MS laboratory assignment.