Using simple algebraic concepts to understand chemical composition problems

• Enrico Ravera ^[1] ; Claudio Luchinat ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Florence

     University of Florence

     Firenze, Italia

     
• Localización: International journal of mathematical education in science and technology, ISSN 0020-739X, Vol. 53, Nº. 4, 2022, págs. 842-857
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Problems involving the composition of mixtures are common in chemical practice and are thus part of introductory Chemistry courses at the early undergraduate level. However, they are often perceived by students as a rather obscure matter, which may be due to poor familiarity with algebraic manipulations. Furthermore, to increase the distaste of students, these problems are susceptible to large errors arising from minor rounding errors, which is an intrinsic feature of the underlying operations. In this manuscript, we show how these problems can be easily solved with matrix algebra and, from this formulation, explain where the standard approaches for solving these problems come from, and how to reduce the numerical errors.