BS 2nd Year
Semester-III
Course Title: PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY-I (Theory)
Code: CHEM-201 Credit Hours: 3
Course Objectives:
Students will acquire knowledge to enable themselves to understand the fundamental principles
and laws of thermodynamics and chemical equilibria and to investigate the physical properties of
ideal/non-ideal binary solutions. Students will also be able to study the rates of reactions and
perform related calculations.
Course Contents
Chemical Thermodynamics:
Equation of states, ideal and real gases, the virial equation and the van der Waals equation for real
gases, critical phenomena and critical constants, four laws of thermodynamics and their
applications, thermochemistry, calorimetry, heat capacities and their dependence on temperature,
pressure and volume, reversible and non-reversible processes, spontaneous and non-spontaneous
processes, relations of entropy and Gibbs free energy with equilibrium constant, Gibbs Helmholtz
equation, fugacity and activity.
Chemical Equilibrium:
General equilibrium expressions, reaction quotients, examples of equilibrium reactions in solid,
liquid and gas phases, extent of reactions and equilibrium constants, Gibbs energies of formation
and calculations of equilibrium constants, effect of temperature and pressure on the equilibrium
constants/compositions, van’t Hoff equation, Le-Chatelier’s principle.
Solution Chemistry:
Physical properties of liquids, surface tension, viscosity, refractive index, dipole moment etc. and
their applications, brief account of interactions among the molecules in liquids, ideal and non-ideal
solutions, Raoult’s law and its applications, lowering of vapor pressure, elevation of boiling point,
depression of freezing point, osmotic pressure, vapor pressure of non-ideal solutions and Henry’s
law, abnormal colligative properties, degrees of association and dissociation of solutes, osmotic
pressure and its measurement, fractional distillation and concept of azeotropic mixtures.
Chemical Kinetics:
The rates of reactions, zero, first, second and third order reactions with same and different initial
concentrations, half-lives of reactions, experimental techniques for rate determination and
methods for determination of order of reaction (integration, half-life, initial rate, and graphical
methods), Arrhenius equation.
