拉曼大学化学系介绍 - 英文版(Chemistry Course Year 2 Subjects (May intake)) 对化学系和化学工程系有混淆的同学可以看看！

This post will continuously to explain the classes I had attend in my year 2 trimesters.

Year 2 Trimester 1
1 Pengajian Malaysia
2 Properties of Organic Compounds
3 Colloid and Surface Chemistry
4 Transition Elements and Coordination Compounds
Chemistry Laboratory IV

Subject 1 is some kind like the history of Malaysia and who studied in STPM will get familiar to this subject. Besides reading and memorizing the boring history, we still have assignment and performance that make this subject alive. Thanks, I won’t wish to stay in the lecture hall for those bored lecture.

Subject 2 basically study on 4 main extent which are aromatic chemistry, aldehydes and ketones, bifunctional compounds and synthetic methods. Aromatic chemistry is about using Huckel’s rule to classify the aromatic, anti-aromatic and non-aromatic compounds, their reactions and mechanism, predict the products of reduction and aromatic side-chain reactions, prepare and predict the reaction products of aromatic amines, diazonium slats and phenols, polycyclic aromatics and hetero-aromatics and their reactions. The content of aldehydes and ketones study on their synthesis from other organic compounds, their reaction and mechanism and chemical analysis for aldehydes and ketones. The third part of this subject learn about the keto-enol tautomerism , mechanism of alpha halogenations, Aldol, Clasen and Dieckmann condensations, Knoevenagel reaction, Michael addition, Robinson annulations reaction and Mannich reaction. The last part is focu on the sunthetic methods that using retrosynthetic analysis and using protective group, Wittig reagents and their reaction mechanism, alkyation of 1,3-dithianes, enamines, Diels-Alder reactions.

Subject 3 is quite an interesting subject that explores a new field to me that we study about colloid which the tiny particles suspend in the solution without sediment ate. In easier way, mayonnaise, milk, your cosmetic product were a colloid system. Mayonnaise is made of tiny oil droplet particles that disperse in the water solution. I believe that you remember oil and water was immiscible. In general, oil has lower density than water and it will float on the top of water.  So how to make oil “soluble” in water or apply this concepts with s-s. s-l, s-g, l-l, l-g, g-g  (s=solid, l=liquid, g=gas) become the main concern in this subject. I give more example, smoke is a colloid system between tiny solid to disperse in gas phase, hair spray is another colloid system that liquid disperse in gas phase and waste water with high turbidlyis due to the colloid system that the tiny solid that disperse in liquid phase. (tiny particle is the size of particle that up to micro level which can’t be seen through naked eyes.)
Surface Chemistry is the another part covered in subject 3 that study about the surface and interface (interface is the layer between two immiscible phase). Surface tension, arrangement of atom on the surface, the method to determine the arrangement of atom (based on TEM, SEM which is another part that covered in spectroscopy subject.) Besides, this part also explain the application of surface chemistry which is coating. This part is kinda simple with the example of coating a thin film to the car mirror to reflect the heat energy and reduce the temperature inside the car.  The interaction of molecules of the film is studied. Hope you get a general idea in this.

Subject 4 is quite interesting that it explore the mystery part in the periodic table, the transition elements and the extra two lines of elements below the periodic table, lanthanides and actinides. The general properties of transition metals , electronic configuration, , bonding in their complexes, oxidation states were discussed. Besides, we also been explored to the structures of coordination compounds with different coordination numbers, type of ligand involved in coordination with a boring nomenclature. mononuclear and polynuclear complexes and structure and isomerism of complex compounds, synthesis, properties and stability of complexes, bonding theories in transition metal complexes and their electronic spectra complexes. After that we go deep into the magnetism of transition metal complexes which included crystal field theory and magnetic susceptibility. We also focus on two versatile  elements, platinum and vanadium. Finally, we had been explained on the biological inorganic chemistry on the roles of metal ions and transport protein which contribute in biochemistry.

Year 2 Trimester 2
Industrial training

Well, industrial training also known as internship for us. We will leave our university and be the trainee in the company. No more lecturer note, tutorial and practical! But we need to write biweekly report about what we had done during our internship and some of us might need to do a presentation on what you had done to your company’s supervisor. You can be assigned to an unknown company by UTAR or you can find out your own and go for interview. For me, I found my company that accepts my internship form job street website and I went for interview and finally accepted. This internship last for 3 months only and you will experience the working life there.


Year 2 Trimester 3
1 Kinetics, Mechanisms and Stereochemistry
2 Environmental Science and Technology I
3 Thermodynamics and Electrochemistry
4 Spectroscopy and Chromatography I
Chemistry Laboratory III

Some part of the first subject as listed was one of my favourite subject. In kinetics, those rate law, rate constant and loving formula was fascinated me during my secondary school study and foundation studies. Mechanism was about the reaction mechanism of SN1, SN2, E1 E2 and so on. It’s just similar to the organic chemistry with those mechanisms. Lastly, Stereochemistry was a bit boring. In this part, we need to name and draw the structure of the isomers. cis, trans, conformation of cycloalkane (chair conformation and boat conformation). However the conformation of cycloalkane was interesting and challenging.

The second subject as listed in Year 2 trimester 3 is just an introduction to the waste water treatment which is how to treat the effluent from industry, household and agriculture site. SO IT IS VERY BASIC AND BORING! GOSH! We learn about the natural cycles (hydrological cycle, oxygen, CO2, N2 cycle,  sulphur cycle, phosphorus cycle), water environment and properties of water, type of metal and their function and impacts through the environments. However, there still have some interesting parts which included the atmosphere of earth (sorry, now only I learnt this, so it is interesting to me), and the reaction of air molecules in different layer of atmosphere (after related to General physics, only I understand why our sky is blue colour. :D). The main soul of this subject was water environment and some basic treatment and organics and heavy metal in environment. We study on the properties of water, some reaction occur in water, microorganism present in water and their respective function. Water pollutants, type of water treatment plant, chemical treatment process to treat different type of waste water were discussed also. Besides, we also study some synthesis of organic matter, such as paper, polymer and other and we learn on the different method to synthesis them by using different solvent system or starting materials.

Subject 3 was a tough subject, one of the killer subjects. This subject consists of two part, thermodynamics and electrochemistry. Thermodynamics is the killer and it covered the first law, second law, physical transformation of pure substances, simple mixtures, phase diagrams and chemical equilibrium. You will feel unfamiliar with those syllabuses but if I mentioned on work, heat, energy, internal energy, expansion work, enthalpy, entropy, Gibbs energy? Many formulae prompt out from your mind right? If you like A-maths with differentiation and integration, and you logical enough that able to understand the condition for those reaction, then this should be not a problem for you, but not for me. GOSH! I HATE THIS! Fortunately, this subject still consists of the second part which is electrochemistry. I had fell in love with chemistry because of this part! Cell potential, Nerst equation, electromotive force (emf), electrochemical series, electrolysis is just cute for me. Thanks God for the presence of this part, else I will be killed by this killer subject too.

The next subject, spectroscopy is also quite special that I never learned before in my secondary school and this subject start to explore to the analytical science by using instruments. We used light with different wavelength to excite the atom to form a spectrum by absorbing the light or radiate light or we also apply heat energy to excite the atom to produce spectrum. We start to learn about the component of the instrument and understand how they function. The instruments we learnt are FTIR, UV spectrometer, 1H NMR, chromatography, GC. FTIR is used to determine the functional group present in the compound; UV spectrometer is used to determine the presence of specified compound and also the concentration of specified compound present in the mixture; NMR is used to determine the structure of the organic compound; chromatography is used to understand the concept of separation among the mixture of compound while GC was another separation method to separate and determine the concentration and presence of the compounds. This subject become very important when we start to work at research lab and analytical lab.