Developing Smartphone Methods for Chemical Kinetics Experiments

Experiments measuring the rates of chemical reactions (chemical kinetics) offer excellent opportunities for students to acquire, analyze, and interpret quantitative data.  Unfortunately, such experiments usually require expensive equipment such as spectrophotometers, which puts them out of reach for most high school students.  In this project, the student researcher will develop methods for acquiring kinetics data using the ubiquitous smartphone cameras, and will develop sample experiments that can be used by beginning chemistry students.

Name of research group, project, or lab
Seth Brown Research Group
Why join this research group or lab?

The research in the group centers around the study of chemical reaction mechanisms, a key component of which relies on kinetic measurements.  Beginning students often can only get a very limited experience of such studies because of the need for expensive instrumentation, but cell phone cameras are both very powerful and widely available.  Being able to use them for scientific measurements would be a real contribution to making scientific measurements accessible to a wide audience.

Logistics Information:
Project categories
Chemistry and Biochemistry
Student ranks applicable
First Year
Sophomore
Junior
Student qualifications

Students should have completed Chem 10171/Chem 10181.  Concurrent or past enrollment in Chem 20274/20284 is desirable but not required.  Enjoying playing around with cell phone cameras is a must.

Research will ideally start in the Spring 2025 semester and will be for credit during the semester, but the student should be available to also work over the summer for 10 weeks (paid).

Hours per week
1 credit / 3-6 hours
Compensation
Research for Credit
Number of openings
1
Techniques learned

The project will involve traditional methods for kinetic studies (UV-visible spectrophotometry) and image analysis techniques for studying cell phone images, as well as data analysis methods for simulating reaction kinetics.

Project start
Spring 2025
Contact Information:
Mentor
sbrown3@nd.edu
Name of project director or principal investigator
Seth N. Brown
Email address of project director or principal investigator
Seth.N.Brown.114@nd.edu
1 sp. | 0 appl.
Hours per week
1 credit / 3-6 hours
Project categories
Chemistry and Biochemistry