Full Computer Simulation of the Formaldehyde Bisulfite Clock Reaction: The Effective Use of Mathcad in the Undergraduate Curriculum

The effective use of Mathcad in the General Chemistry curriculum can be used to introduce students to the analysis of complicated chemical systems. In our work we have employed Mathcad in a thorough theoretical analysis of the formaldehyde bisulfite clock reaction. The formaldehyde clock reaction has been extensively employed in many general chemistry laboratories to teach chemical kinetics. Due to the complexity of the mechanism, involving acid-base equilibria and knowledge of pH, most students find it difficult to fully grasp what is actually happening in the reaction. With the intent of making this experiment more transparent to students we have simulated the formaldehyde-bisulfite kinetics experiment on a Mathcad platform to reproduce experimental data; our simulation accurately predicts the experimental data. Our analysis and results demonstrate the effective use of Mathcad as a novel pedagogical tool in the study of complex chemical reactions.