Vuong,+Jim

I learned that hydrofluoric acid is a weak acid meaning that it has strong bonds making it less easily to break apart. I also learned that fluoride ions can hold an electron more strongly that any other ion can and are also very electron-hungry. After easily slipping through the other layers of skin because of its uncharged property, the hydrogen ions and fluoride ions split up and look for other mates in the epidermis. The hydrogen ions binds to enzymes that neutralize acids and keep the pH in our bloods and tissue stable, and the electron-hungry fluoride ions attaches itself on to calcium and magnesium and if enough calcium or magnesium is disrupted this can cause death.
 * September 24, 2009**

//Influences of Ancient Greek on Chemical Terminology// After reading the article, I learned that hundreds of terms used commonly in chemistry are derived from the ancient Greek language. For an example, hydrogen is from the Greek word //"Hydro + Gen"//, meaning “water former” in Greek. Also this has an etymological meaning, meaning that when hydrogen burns, water is formed obliviously making sense why it’s called “water former”. I also learned that Latin influences some terms in chemistry. An example would be the prefix “//nona-//“ which comes from Latin not Greek.
 * October 7, 2009**

//Alternative Energy Sources// I read the article on //How does solar power work?// Even though solar energy sounds like the savior to energy production and global warming, it doesn’t measure up. Efficient solar cells are too expensive too make. Affordable solar cells can not make efficient amount of electricity. A solar cell is a human-made device that absorbs energy from the sun and converts it into electricity. With that being said, solar cells produce electricity by absorbing light from the sun. The sun causes electrons to get excited up to a higher energy level in the bonds (between silicon atoms); this creates a current that we can collect for energy. Jimmy, Good thoughts. Solar power continues to be anProxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 oxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 0emerging technology. MW
 * October 30, 2009**

//Polymers in the Field// When I finished assessing the article, I figure out that manufacturers recommend that turf fields be sprayed with water before a game on hot days. They recommend practicing this because the water immediately lowers the temperature of the field. Also water has a high heat capacity making it more resistant to temperature change and the evaporation of water also carries thermal energy away. The turf fields strongly retain solar radiation because the “grass” blades in the artificial turf are dyed green making the turf feel hot. I found this interesting because I never knew why turf got so warm on hot days and now that I found this out I will always know why it get so hot.
 * November 20, 2009**

OK. Good post Jimmy. MW

//Question From the Classroom: Oil & Water// When I was reading this article, I already knew that water molecules were held together by hydrogen bonding, oil sits on top of water because it is less dense, and they do not mix because of the rule “like dissolves like”. They do not mix because oil is nonpolar and water is polar following the rule of “like dissolves like”. What I didn’t know was that oil molecules would be happy to mix with water because it has stronger attractions (dipole-induced dipole attractions) with water molecules than neighboring oil molecules (induced dipole-induced dipole attractions). Oil doesn’t mix with water because water molecules are calling the shot. The hydrogen bonding between water molecules are stronger than the attractions between oil and water molecules. I also thought that it was interesting that oil molecule is not hydrophobic because of this explanation and if dropped onto a wet surface, it would disperse and make a thin layer.
 * January 18, 2010**

Jimmy, Well done! Well covered. 5 stars. MW

//Salting Roads: The Solution for Winter Driving// The first thing in the article that struck me was “adding salt to water depresses or lowers the freezing point below zero.” I remember hearing Mr. Williams stating this, and when I saw it, it was like “bam”. The next thing that came up that really drew my interest was the technique of purifying water. The article stated that you could freeze saltwater and it would produce a solid of pure water and liquid of saltwater on top, and this would easily give you drinking water if you needed it. I really like the explanation of freezing point depression. Especially when it explains that the more concentrated the solution, the lower the freezing point.
 * January 24, 2010**

//Hand Warmers// While reading //hand warmers//, I already knew that removing the product from the package will start the chemical reaction because it permits oxygen to react with the substances inside the permeable covering. What I didn’t know was that the substances inside the covering contained iron powder, salt, water, an absorbent material, and activated carbon. The variation of lasting effects of heat was also something I already known from prior knowledge. Some hand warmers can last seven hours, and others can last a whole day. “Reusable hand warmers don’t contain iron but instead use a supersaturated solution of sodium acetate that releases heat as it crystallizes.” This line was also something new for me and I thought it was very interesting and also the fact that you have to boil it to reactivate it. To conclude my entry, I knew that some warmers are used to transport tropical fish thanks to the knowledge of Mr. Williams.
 * February 3, 2010**

Jimmy, Good post but the tropical fish thing was in the article - that's something I learned. MW

//The Chemical Composition of Maple Syrup// To start off, I barely knew anything about maple syrup. Some obvious facts I already knew prior to the reading was that maple syrup is an alkaline, the color is brown possibly due to the heating of sugar, and that maple syrup is slightly acidic. Now that is out of the way, I've learned a lot from this reading. First, I learned maple syrup is slightly acidic owing to the presence of organic acids: oxalic, succinic, malic, fumaric, citric, tartaric, and aconitic acids. Another interesting fact was that maple sap include a lot of amino acids including: glycine,alanine, asparagine, threonine, leucine, isoleucine, valine, and methionine. Finally, 98% of the water in sap must be removed to make syrup using either heat-induced evaporation or reverse osmosis followed by evaporation.
 * February 24, 2010

Jimmy, OK. You have a contradictory statement in there about alkaline and acidic. Maple syrup can't be both! Other than that looks good. 5 stars. MW **

//Flaking Away// Before perusing the article, things that I already knew about rusting on automobiles were: rusting is a chemical process involving oxidation and reduction, salt from salt on roads and ocean breeze with water contributed significantly to rusting, and steel is a nonuniform solid. After reading the article, I learned that rust-making is also considered an electro-chemical reaction. Also, the redox reaction that forms rust only needs three ingredients to occur, which are an anode, a cathode, and a electrolyte solution. The anode is the metal readily gives up electrons, the cathode is the substance that easily accepts the electrons, and the electrolyte solution shuttles ions between the cathode and anode. Last but not least, I learned that water on steel surfaces act as a solvent for ions produced when iron metal at the anodic regions loses electrons and the electrons are conducted through the metal to the cathodic region where the react with water and oxygen from the air to form hydroxide ions.
 * April 23, 2010**

Jimmy, Very thorough! 5 shiny stars! MW