CHEMISTRY GLOSSARY

caramel    →   karamel

Caramel is a dark brown substance made from sugar, used to colour and flavour food, added to some liqueur as a colouring agent.

chemical    →   kemikalija

Chemicals are a common name for all chemical products or substances prepared by means of chemical-technologic processes.

argon    →   argon

Argon was discovered by Lord Raleigh and Sir William Ramsay (Scotland) in 1894. The origin of the name comes from the Greek word argos meaning inactive. It is colourless and odourless noble gas. Chemically inert. It is the third most abundant element in the earth’s atmosphere and makes up about 1 %. Argon is continuously released into the air by decay of radioactive potassium-40. Pure form is obtained from fractional distillation of liquid air. Used in lighting products. It is often used in filling incandescent light bulbs. Some is mixed with krypton in fluorescent lamps. Crystals in the semiconductor industry are grown in argon atmospheres.

aromatic compounds    →   aromatski ugljikovodici

Aromatic compounds are a major group of unsaturated cyclic hydrocarbons containing one or more rings, typified by benzene, which has a 6-carbon ring containing three double bonds. All the bonds in benzene (C₆H₆) are the same length intermediate between double and single C-C bonds. The properties arise because the electrons in the p-orbitals are delocalised over the ring, giving extra stabilization energy of 150 kJ/mol over the energy of Kekulé structure. Aromatic compounds are unsaturated compounds, yet they do not easily partake in addition reactions.

Historical use of the term implies a ring containing only carbon (e.g., benzene, naphthalene), but it is often generalized to include heterocyclic structures such as pyridine and thiophene.

Arrhenius equation    →   Arheniusova jednadžba

In 1889, Svante Arrhenius explained the variation of rate constants with temperature for several elementary reactions using the relationship

where the rate constant k is the total frequency of collisions between reaction molecules A times the fraction of collisions exp(-E_a/RT) that have an energy that exceeds a threshold activation energy E_a at a temperature of T (in kelvin). R is the universal gas constant.

asbestos    →   azbest

Asbestos is any one of a group of fibrous amphibole minerals (from the silicate group). It has widespread commercial uses because of its resistance to heat, chemical inertness., and high electrical resistance. Since 1970s short asbestos fibres have been recognized as a cause of asbestosis, a serious lung disorder, and mesothelioma, a fatal form of lung cancer. These concerns have limited its use and imposed many safety procedures when it is used.

astatine    →   astat

Astatine was discovered by Emilio Gino Segrè, Dale R. Corson and K. R. MacKenzie (USA) in 1940. The origin of the name comes from the Greek word astatos meaning unstable. It is unstable, radioactive member of the halogen group. Astatine does not occur in nature. Similar to iodine. Produced by bombarding bismuth with alpha particles. Since its isotopes have such short half-lives there are no commercially significant compounds of astatine.

atom    →   atom

Atom is an atom is the smallest particle of an element that retains the chemical properties of the element. Rutherford-Bohr’s model represents the atom as a positively charged core of a size around 10^-14 m composed of protons (positive particles) and neutrons (neutral particles) around which negatively charged electrons circle. The number of protons and electrons are equal, so the atom is an electrically a neutral particle. Diameter of the atom is about 10^-10 m.

base    →   baza

Historically, base is a substance that yields an OH - ion when it dissociates in solution, resulting in a pH>7. In the Brønsted definition, a base is a substance capable of accepting a proton in any type of reaction. The more general definition, due to G.N. Lewis, classifies any chemical species capable of donating an electron pair as a base. Typically, bases are metal oxides, hydroxides, or compounds (such as ammonia) that give hydroxide ions in aqueous solution.

battery    →   baterija

Battery a device that converts chemical energy to electrical energy. The process underlying the operation of a battery involves a chemical reaction in which electrons are transferred from one chemical species to another. This process is carried out in two half-reactions, one that involves the loss of electrons and one that involves their gain. The battery is an electrochemical cell divided in two half-cells, and reaction proceeds when these are connected together by an electrically conducting pathway. The passage of electrons from one half-cell to the other corresponds to an electric current. Each half-cell contains an electrode in contact with the reacting species. The electrode which passes electrons into the circuit when battery discharges is called anode and is negative terminal. The electrode which receives electrons is called cathode, and is the battery’s positive terminal. The electrical circuit is completed by an electrolyte, an electrically conducting substance placed between the two electrodes which carriers a flow of charge between them. In wet cells, the electrolyte is a liquid containing dissolved ions, whose motion generates an electrical current; in dry cells the electrolyte is basely solid, for example, a solid with mobile ions or porous solid saturated with an ionic solution.