Discussion: Should Students Calculate Titration Curves?

摘要

After working in industrial analytical laboratories for twenty years, I became an academic and taught analytical chemistry. I wondered why this should include calculating titration curves, since I had never had occasion to do so as an analyst. I have since taught hundreds of analytical students and thousands of introductory students to do such calculations, but still see no purpose in it for either course. The calculations do not help students to understand titrimetry. Students concentrate their attention on learning the algorithms but still fail to understand the basic principles. They do not understand the effect of equilibrium at the equivalence point, nor the usefulness of logarithmic relationships. It is an example of the principle asserted by Moore (1) that students who can answer numerical questions do not necessarily understand their chemistry. It provides an exercise in equilibrium calculations for which they otherwise have little use (2, 3).