Labs and Practicals
This page provides undergraduate students with a help page designed to assist them with practical work. It includes pages on interactive laboratories, safety and various useful web based tools.
Click on the relevant link below to be taken to the desired part of this page.
Lab book and lab report guidelines
We have here some guidance for writing up your lab books and reports which is hopefully going to help you develop
consitency in your writing and allow you to be more effective in the labs.
Note book guide.
Chem 1 lab guide.
Chem 2 lab guide.
Chem 3 lab guide.
This section contains links to useful sites with interactive experiments.
- Oxford University
- The Oxford University web site is probably most useful for inorganic chemistry, allowing you to study:
It also offers some pretty good tutorials concerning the
synthesis of ketones and the
analysis of IR and Raman spectra.
Below are some tools which you may find useful when doing chemistry work.
- Acronym database
- Enter an acronym into the search engine and this program will tell you what it stands for. Useful when trying to decipher journal articles.
- Analysis of Spectra
- Our own Analysis page has links to help with many types of spectra interpretation.
- Unit converter
- Extensive list of measurement units for you to convert between. Need to know how many plethron in a parasang (178)? How many Irish noggins in a mutchkin (3.8)? It's all here!
- Web Elements Scholar
- Periodic table useful for finding out basic facts about elements without having to go the library. Includes electronic configurations and physical properties.
- Molecular mass calculator
- Fairly obvious: put formula in, get mass out.
All experiments in the department require completed risk assessment forms to ensure that yourself and others are aware of the hazards associated with the procedures and chemicals involved. For the first three years of your course, risk assessments are completed by your demonstrators and the doctors in charge of the lab. However, when you reach fourth year you'll need to fill out these forms for yourself. The purpose of these sites is to enable you to do this.
- COSHH forms
- This site contains the various forms that students may need to complete prior to starting experiments, downloadable in Word and .pdf forms.
To complete these forms, you need to find out the hazards of any chemicals being used. The sites below are databases that allow you to search for the hazards of a particular chemical.
- Oxford University's safety site
- This site isn't too user friendly but it is one of the most comprehensive sources of general chemical hazard sources we could find.
The sites listed below are operated by chemical manufacturers and are particularly useful for finding out about commercial availability and prices of a chemical. Also offer basic hazard information and are a quick way to find out further details of a chemical, such as its CAS number, melting point or structure.
- Sigma-Aldrich
- Sigma-Aldrich have a large catalogue of chemicals, and its site allows you to search for them in a range of ways, including molecular formula and name.
- Alfa Aesar
- This site allows fewer search types (catalogue no., CAS no. or name), but is useful if you can't find what you're looking for on Sigma-Aldrich.
- Fisher Scientific
- This site has an extensive searchable product catalogue, with physical properties and MSDS sheets for your selected chemicals.
Athens provides access to a large variety of on-line resources in the form of databases.
The system allows each individual user to set up a personal account, which then enables access to resources from any computer with Internet access.
All members of Edinburgh University have access to this facility. For details and information on signing up check out the universities library service or download this guide to Athens
written by Dr A.N. Hulme.
- Web of Knowledge
- A really good easy to use database allowing you to search a wide range of journals. For information on Web Of Knowledge
(formerly Web of Science) and Beilstein download this guide writen by Dr A.N. Hulme.
Further information can be found by visiting the ISI Web of
Knowledge and choosing tutorials from the left.
- Mimas crossfire services
- Mimas crossfire provides you with access to the Beilstein Database (organic) and the Gmelin Database (inorganic). The Beilstein
and Gmelin databases are searched using the Beilstein Commander. It allows searching by chemical structure as well as by the more
usual text fields. Results are displayed in diagrams and text formats, with hyperlinks between substances, reactions and citations.
Edinburgh University has a copy of crossfire, which is accessed via the library services in the start up menu. Once you are in click
on the
 and log in using your Athens username and password. For more information on getting
into crossfire and finding your way around see the following sites
- This is a step by step guide
on using crossfire. Just click on the title of this page for general information on the service.
- There is a quick reference
guide for hints on getting the information you require.
- This web site from the University of Wisconsin provides a more comprehensive guide
- Bids
- This contains a good search database for journals. Log in using your Athens id and password. Once you are in click on ingenta
and search for the topic you require.
- Scifinder Scholar
- Scifinder Scholar is the software used to search Chemical Abstracts. The software is very expensive, but Edinburgh University
has a copy in the Chemistry Library. This is another really good database to look up your research topic. Check out the
CAS learning centre to find out more about it and
in particularly how to use it. Scifinder 2000 solutions
is a well-designed web site helping you to get the most out of this database.
- Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC)
- A computerised database containing comprehensive data for organic and metal-organic molecules studied by diffraction.
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