BMOL20060 Assignment 1 2022

You must answer all 5 questions and submit as a .pdf on Brightspace. Your answers must be
typed and only calculations can be handwritten. The deadline for Assignment 1 is 11:59pm on
Friday 14th October. The Assignment component for BMOL20060 is worth 25%. All 3
assignments are equally weighted.

Practical 1: Basic Liquid Handling Skills and Calculations

Question 1.
You are given a P1000 & P5000 micropipette to validate by measuring the weight of distilled
water at the maximum volume and minimum volume for both pipettes. Each volume is tested
five times and you recorded the weight as given by the balance (recorded in grams).

Results
P1000 Weight 1 (g) Weight 2 (g) Weight 3 (g) Weight 4 (g) Weight 5 (g)
1000 µl 1.3 0.85 1.34 1.32 1.1
100 µl 0.20 0.19 0.16 0.16 0.18

Does this micropipette pass validation? Show your workings and comment on how you reached
your decision (7.5 Marks).

P5000 Weight 1 (g) Weight 2 (g) Weight 3 (g) Weight 4 (g) Weight 5 (g)
5000 µl 5.01 5.10 5.03 4.97 5.05
1000 µl 0.97 0.99 1.01 0.99 1.01

Does this micropipette pass validation? Show your workings and comment on how you reached
your decision (7.5 Marks).
BMOL20060 Assignment 1 2022

Question 2
Many chemical salts come as hydrated crystals, i.e. there is a specific ratio of water molecules
associated with the salt crystals. For example: MgSO4.7H2O (Magnesium Sulphate
Heptahydrate or Epsom Salt; FW = 246.48 g/mol) has 7 water molecules to every MgSO4
molecule. The difference between anhydrate and heptahydrate is that anhydrate form MgSO4
does not contain any water molecules whereas heptahydrate form contains seven H2O
molecules per MgSO4 molecule.
Therefore since it is possible to have MgSO4 as an anhydrous (without water) powder the
molecular weight of the anhydrate is 126.1 g/mol lighter than the heptahydrate form (FW =
120.366 g/mol). Once dissolved in water, these salts have the same chemical properties, but
in the solid state they obviously have different FWs.
You are given a recipe for a buffer that contains 9% (w/v) MgSO4.7H2O, however, you only
have MgSO4 anhydrous available to you.
How much MgSO4 anhydrous do you need to make 4.5 L of the buffer with the same molar
concentration as in the recipe? Show your calculations. (15 marks).

Question 3
Compounds used in pharmacology experiments are often initially made as stock solutions.
Stock solutions can then be diluted to the desired final concentration. For instance, take
Serotonin (5-HT) which was initially made at a 50 mM stock concentration. If an experiment
requires 200 mL of Serotonin at a concentration of 10 μM. What volume of stock solution
needs to be diluted? Show your workings. (15 Marks).

What micropipette would you use to measure this volume? (5 marks).

Practical 2: pH & pKa

Question 4. (5 marks each)
a) The [H+] of a solution is 0.035mM. What is the pH of the solution?

b) The [H+] of a solution is 0.035μM. What is the pH of the solution?

c) A solution has a pH of 7.4. What is the [H+] in M?

BMOL20060 Assignment 1 2022

Question 5. (35 marks)

You have 2 buffer solutions with different pH values (buffer A and buffer B) and an
uncalibrated pH meter. What actions and precautions must you take before, during, and after
measuring the pH of the solutions to ensure your readings are accurate?