TAKEAKI OZAWA: Hi.

Welcome to our analytical chemistry lecture.

I am Takeaki Ozawa, the professor of analytical chemistry
at the University of Tokyo.
LIANG-DA CHIU: Hi.
I'm Liang-da Chiu, an assistant professor working with Professor Ozawa.
Nice to meet you.
TAKEAKI OZAWA: This lecture series aims to introduce you the fundamentals
of analytical chemistry.
Being the first lecture of the series, instead of
the following title written here, let's first talk about what exactly
is analytical chemistry.
So what exactly is analytical chemistry?
In my opinion, it's the science of measuring
qualitative and quantitative chemical nature of a substance.
Analytical chemistry is actually one of the branches of science
that is closest to our daily life.
LIANG-DA CHIU: For example, home pregnancy tests.
It detects the existence of a hormone that is secreted
after conception in women urine.
TAKEAKI OZAWA: Another example is identification
of the counterfeit money.
UV light radiation is commonly used to identify
the existence of a special ink that only exists on real bills.
As you can see in this figure, such ink glows under the UV radiation.
Both the examples show that identification of chemical substances
is actually important in our daily lives.
LIANG-DA CHIU: By the way, the action of analyzing a chemical compound
can be much easier than you think.
For long, human has developed an extremely simple method
to identify the purity of gold, by biting it.
Such action is still frequently seen in recent Olympic games,
especially by the gold medalists.
TAKEAKI OZAWA: Although I have to stress that this method is really
imprecise, because there are actually metals
both cheaper and softer than gold.
But the identification of material that has an extremely important practice
since ancient times.
Such practice is even more ancient than the concept of science itself.
To give you an idea, if you live in the northern hemisphere
and look up at the night sky on spring and summer,
you can see this beautiful scenery full of stars.
LIANG-DA CHIU: If the surrounding is without much light pollution.
Knowing the measurement background is important in all analytical chemistry
measurements.
TAKEAKI OZAWA: Thank you.
And you can see the constellation Libra shining up on the sky.
Libra basically depicts a weight balance,
which is one of the very commonly used analytical chemistry tools.
The constellation Libra is one of the oldest defined constellation,
which can be traced back to the ancient Babylonian.
This means that people have been conducting analytical chemistry
activities long before Christ.
LIANG-DA CHIU: By the way, Libra is the only zodiac sign
that is not a living creature.
Being one of the very few constellations and the only zodiac sign
that is not an animal, Libra very well represents the fact
that analyzing the quantity of substances
has been a really important part of daily lives even in ancient times.
TAKEAKI OZAWA: OK, coming back to modern times, here
I want to show you some analytical chemistry tools that are commonly
used around the labs in the world.
To precisely determine the chemical content in a quantitative manner,
the sampling of analytes should be conducted in a quantitative manner.
This means that the weight and the volume information of the analytes
should be always recorded.
This is where electric balance and the volumetric glassware come into play.
Also reducing the unwanted contamination during chemical analysis
is very important to obtain high quality data.
Tools that help increase the purity of the sample, such as a filter paper
as shown here, are also important for analytical chemistry studies.
LIANG-DA CHIU: These analytical tools make me think of the kitchen tools
at my home.
TAKEAKI OZAWA: In fact, it is indeed now a trend to bring science into cooking.
But still cooking is generally considered
as a branch of art instead of science.
Next I want to explain the essential reason that
makes cooking art and analytical chemistry science,
even though they share many similar tools.
So using this slide, I want to briefly discuss where the science
flavor come into analytical chemistry.
The three key actions that makes analytical chemistry
more science than art are calibration, chemical analysis,
and interpretation and publication of results.
Since essence of analytical chemistry lies in the chemical analysis part,
the future lecture will give you the details.
Here we will focus on the calibration and the interpretation part.
Before that, Liang-da, what do you think is the purpose of scientific research?
LIANG-DA CHIU: I think it is to understand how nature functions
and fulfill human curiosity.
TAKEAKI OZAWA: That is indeed one of the reasons
why we can conduct our studies with the money from all the taxpayers.
How we pay back is to fulfill their curiosity.
In order to rigorously justify that our research indeed
reveals the truth about nature, it's important to make sure
that our experiments can be repeated by any other individuals around the world.
So calibration of experiments to a common standard
among the international community is critical step in scientific research.
LIANG-DA CHIU: Don't forget, before letting
others repeat your experiment, always first repeat by yourself.
TAKEAKI OZAWA: Right.
And repeating experiment means that you always
have to use statistical method to analyze your results.
At last, no research is finished before it is published,
because this communication step is when you
open your discoveries to let the community to verify
the credibility of your claim.
LIANG-DA CHIU: And you can never fulfill human curiosity
without letting the others know what you have discovered.
TAKEAKI OZAWA: During this communication step,
it is also very important to use international standards
to express your data so that everyone can understand you easily.
We'll come back to the errors and statistics in analytical chemistry
in the next two lectures.
Here let's focus on the calibration part and international standards
that I have been repeating.
The calibration of experiments is actually not a simple task at all.
There are many factors that must be considered.
Here three of the more important factors are listed.
Environmental factors, standard protocols,
and calibration of apparatus.
LIANG-DA CHIU: One of the most well known environmental factors in weight
measurements is the effect of airflow.
Many electronic balances now have transparent covers to protect
the measurement from airflow.
TAKEAKI OZAWA: Exactly.
Besides that, what is less known is that most volumetric glassware are actually
calibrated at 20 Celsius degrees.
So if the air conditioner of your lab is set at 25 degrees,
all of your measurements already contain errors in them.
Humidity is another environmental factor that
could change the outcome of experiments, and unfortunately, they are seldom
mentioned in academic papers.
LIANG-DA CHIU: Sometimes in the same lab,
experiments have better or worse results depending on the season of the year.
TAKEAKI OZAWA: True.
Next, about standard experimental protocol.
There are actually a lot of know-hows in doing
experiment that people without experiences usually overlook.
For example, whenever you use the volumetric glasswares,
you should always make sure that all bubbles expelled,
because bubbles always occupy volume.
Also when reading the liquid level in any volumetric glasswares,
you should always make sure your eye is at the same level
of the bottom or top of the meniscus.
Otherwise an essential error will also be introduced.
LIANG-DA CHIU: Before you conduct any experiments,
I suggest you refer to the textbooks for basic know-hows
of the specific experiment.
TAKEAKI OZAWA: At last we come to the calibration of apparatus.
As I repeatedly emphasized in the previous slides,
it's important that the results of your experiments
can be understood by the whole scientific and general community.
This means that one kilogram readout from your apparatus
must well represent the one kilogram that we understand.
Every experimental apparatus you use should
be regularly calibrated to make sure they readout values are trustable.
LIANG-DA CHIU: Also you should avoid using units that are not
generally recognized by the community.
Many countries, including the two biggest economies, the U.S. and China,
have their own weight or length units that cannot be understood by other
countries.
Such confusion should be avoided when publishing your research results.