CHEMISTRY GLOSSARY

international system of units    →   međunarodni sustav jedinica

International System of Units (SI) is the unit system adopted by the General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 and recommended for use in all scientific and technical fields. It consists of seven base units (meter, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, candela), plus derived units and prefixes.

kinetic energy    →   kinetička energija

Kinetic energy (E_k) is associated with the state of motion of a body. It is a scalar property and defined to be

Kinetic energy is most clearly exhibited in gases, in which molecules have much greater freedom of motion than in liquids and solids.

mass    →   masa

Mass (m) is the quantity of matter contained in a particle or body regardless of its location in the universe. Mass is constant, whereas weight is affected by the distance of a body from the centre of the Earth (or of other planet). The SI unit is kilogram.

According to the Einstein equation

all forms of energy possess a mass equivalent.

Knudsen burette    →   Knudsenova bireta

Knudsen's automatic bulb-burette, developed by the Danish physicist Martin Knudsen (1871-1949), is designed in a way that even routine field analysis in a boat laboratory would provide highly accurate measurements. The burette is filled with a mixture of silver nitrate from reservoir R, located above the burette, by opening the A valve. When the solution crosses the three-way C valve the A valve is closed preventing further solution flow in to the burette. Any extra solution is caught in the W bowl. Turn the C valve, which marks the zero on the scale, in order to allow atmospheric air to enter the burette. Since most open-ocean samples lie in a relatively small chlorinity range, the burette is designed so that much of its capacity is in the bulb (B). This allows the titration to be quick (by quickly releasing contents from the B area) and reduces the error that occurs from the slow drainage along the inner wall of the burette.

Each millimeter is divided in to twenty parts (double millimeter division of the Knudsen burette) which allows for highly accurate measurements (the scale is read up to a precision of 0.005 mL). From 0 to 16 the burette isn't divided, that usually starts from 16 and goes until 20.5 or 21.5. A single double millimeter on a Knudsen burette scale corresponds to one permille of chloride in the seawater sample. This burette can be used for titration of water from all of the oceans and seas, with the exemptions being areas with very low salinity (e.g. the Baltic Sea) and river estuaries which require the use of normal burettes.

molality    →   molalitet

Molality or molal concentration (b; formerly m) is a concentration in which the amount of solute is stated in moles and the amount of solvent in kilograms.

The unit of molality is mol kg^-1.

newton    →   njutn

Newton (N) is the SI unit of force, being the force required to give a mass of one kilogram an acceleration of 1 m s^-2 (N = kg m s^-2). It was named after the British scientist Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727).

pickling    →   dekapiranje

Pickling is a process to chemically remove scale or oxide from steel to obtain a clean surface. When applied to bars or coils prior to bright drawing, the steel is immersed in a bath of dilute sulphuric acid (w(H₂SO₄) = 10 %) heated to a temperature of around 80 °C. An inhibitor is added to prevent attack and pitting of the cleaned metal. After pickling, a washing process takes place followed by immersion in a lime-water bath to neutralise any remaining acid.

position vector    →   položajni vektor

The location of a point-like object relative to the origin of a coordinate system is given by a position vector r, which in unit vector notation is

where x, y and z are the scalar components of r.

power    →   snaga

Power is the rate at which work is done. If a force does work W in a time interval Δt, the average power is:

Instantanous power is the instantaneous rate of doing work:

Like work, power is scalar quantity. Its SI unit is watt (W); 1 W=1 J s^-1.

pipette    →   pipeta

Pipettes are glass tubes which are tapers towards at both ends into narrow opened tubes. According to their design two types of pipettes can be distinguished:

Volumetric pipettes

Volumetric pipettes (transfer or belly pipette) are used in volumetric analysis, when there is a need for taking exact smaller volume of a sample solution or reagent. The upper tube of volumetric pipette has a ringlike marking (mark) which marks its calibrated volume. Pipettes calibrated to deliver (TD or Ex) the indicated volume. By sucking in (with mouth, propipette or a water pump) the liquid is pulled in a little bit above the mark and the opening of the pipet is closed with a forefingertip. Outer wall of pipet is wiped and, with a slight forefinger loosening, the liquid is released until it reaches the mark. Mark must figure as a tangent on a lower edge of the liquid meniscus. A pipette is emptied out by lifting the forefinger off and letting the liquid flow out of the pipette freely. After another 15 s and the tip of the pipette is pulled onto the inner wall of the vessel. It is absolutely forbidden to blow out the contents of the pipette

Graduated pipettes

Graduated pipettes (Mohr pipette) have a scale divided into units of one and of 1/10th of a millilitre. Because of their wide necks it is less accurate than the volumetric pipette. They are used when taking volume of solutions in which accuracy does not have to be very high. They are filled in the same way as volumetric ones and liquid can be gradually released.