General

Chemistry 1
Module 1: Properties of Matter
 Lesson

1 Properties of Matter
As you look around you, you must wonder about the properties of
matter. How do plants grow and why are they green? Why is the sun hot? Why
does a hot dog get hot in a microwave oven? Why does wood burn whereas
rocks do not? What is a flame? How does soap work? Why does soda fizz when
you open the bottle? When iron rusts, what’s happening? And why doesn’t
aluminum rust? How does a cold pack for an athletic injury, which is stored for
weeks or months at room temperature, suddenly get cold when you need it?
How does a hair permanent work? The answers to these and endless other
questions lie in the domain of chemistry. In this lesson we begin to explore the
nature of matter: how it is organized and how and why it changes.

What’s In

A knowledge of chemistry is useful to almost everyone—chemistry occurs

all around us all of the time, and an understanding of chemistry is useful to
doctors, lawyers, mechanics, business people, firefighters, and poets among
others. Chemistry is important—there is no doubt about that. It lies at the
heart of our efforts to produce new materials that make our lives safer and
easier, to produce new sources of energy that are abundant and nonpolluting,
and to understand and control the many diseases that threaten us and our
food supplies. Even if your future career does not require the daily use of
chemical principles, your life will be greatly influenced by chemistry. Can you
stil by chemistry. Can you still recall what is chemistry?

Notes to the Teacher

Let students recall the definition of chemistry. Let them dig
deeper on what it truly means. It is important that students
comprehend the subject’s vital role in understanding the
different processes that matter undergoes. Such will result to
 a deeper appreciation of the natural world and encourage
them to apply these principles to make lives better.

What’s New

Read carefully the following riddles. All of the answers are matter. Clues are
given by the number of blank boxes after the riddle. Please put your answers in
a blank sheet of paper.
RIDDLE TIME

1. No need to go far and wide, in your meals I subtly hide; To

save them from being bland; from tasteless to grand. What am I?

2. What would you be without me? I’m essential even if you

can’t see; I am what you breathe, making your life complete. What
am I?

3. I am needed for life and look transparent;

Adult body? I compose it by 60 percent. What am I?

4. Looking white;
Powdery, I’m fine alright;
In flour I’m added;
So from small it turns to big instead. What am I?
 5. Always present everywhere,
I brighten most food I swear; From coffee to pastry, all of them
becomes tasty. What am I?

What is It

Matter, the “stuff” of which the universe is composed, has two characteristics:
it has mass and it occupies space. Matter comes in a great variety of forms: the
stars, the air that you are breathing, the gasoline that you put in your car, the
chair on which you are sitting, the meat in the sandwich you may have had for
lunch, the tissues in your brain that enable you to read and comprehend this
sentence, and so on. To try to understand the nature of matter, we classify it in
various ways. For example, wood, bone, and steel share certain characteristics.
These things are all rigid; they have definite shapes that are difficult to change.
On the other hand, water and gasoline, for example, take the shape of any
container into which they are poured.
The substances we have just described illustrate the three states of matter:
solid, liquid, and gas. The state of a given sample of matter depends on the
strength of the forces among the particles contained in the matter; the stronger
these forces, the more rigid the matter.

Table 1.1. The Three States of Matter

 Figure 1.1. Phase Changes of Matter
Physical and Chemical Properties and Changes
When you see a friend, you immediately respond and call him or her by
name. We can recognize a friend because each person has unique
characteristics or properties. The person may be thin and tall, may have black
hair and brown eyes, and so on. The characteristics just mentioned are
examples of physical properties. Substances also have physical properties.
Typical physical properties of a substance include odor, color, volume, state
(gas, liquid, or solid), density, melting point, and boiling point. We can also
describe a pure substance in terms of its chemical properties, which refer to
its ability to form new substances. An example of a chemical change is wood
burning, giving off heat and gases and leaving a residue of ashes. In this
process, the wood is changed to several new substances. Other examples of
chemical changes include the rusting of the steel, the digestion of food in our
stomachs, and the growth of grass in our gardens. In a chemical change a
given substance changes to a fundamentally different substance or substances.
Matter can undergo changes in both its physical and its chemical properties. To
illustrate the fundamental differences between physical and chemical changes, we will
consider water. A sample of water contains a very large number of individual units
(called molecules), each made up of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen—
the familiar H2O. This molecule can be represented as

where the letters stand for atoms and the lines show attachments (called
bonds) between atoms, and the molecular model (on the right) represents water
in a more three-dimensional fashion. What is really occurring when water
undergoes the following changes?

When ice melts, the rigid solid becomes a mobile liquid that takes the
shape of its container. Continued heating brings the liquid to a boil, and the
water becomes a gas or vapor that seems to disappear into “thin air.” The
changes that occur as the substance goes from solid to liquid to gas are
represented in Figure 1.2. In ice the water
molecules are locked into fixed positions
(although they are vibrating). In the liquid the
molecules are still very close together, but some
motion is occurring; the positions of
the molecules are no longer fixed as they are
in ice. In the gaseous state the
molecules are much farther apart and move
randomly, hitting each other and the
walls of
the container.
Figure 1.2. States of water The most important thing about all these changes
is that the water molecules are still intact. The motions of individual molecules
and the distances between them change, but H2O molecules are still present.
These changes of state are physical changes because they do not affect the
composition of the substance. In each state we still have water (H 2O), not some
other substance.
Now suppose we run an electric
current through water (electrolysis) as
illustrated in Figure 1.3. Something very
different happens. The water disappears
and is replaced by two new gaseous
substances, hydrogen and oxygen. An
electric current actually causes the water
molecules to come apart—the water decomposes to hydrogen and oxygen. We
can represent this process as follows:

Figure 1.3. Electrolysis

This is a chemical change because water (consisting of H2O molecules)
has changed into different substances: hydrogen (containing H 2 molecules) and
oxygen (containing O2 molecules). Thus in this process, the H 2O molecules have
been replaced by O2 and H2 molecules.

Elements and Compounds

As we examine the chemical changes of matter, we encounter a series of
fundamental substances called elements. Elements cannot be broken down
into other substances by chemical means. Examples of elements are iron,
aluminum, oxygen, and hydrogen. All of the matter in the world around us
contains elements. The elements sometimes are found in an isolated state, but
more often they are combined with other elements. Most substances contain
several elements combined together.
The atoms of certain elements have special affinities for each other. They bind
together in special ways to form compounds, substances that have the same
composition no matter where we find them. Because compounds are made of
elements, they can be broken down into elements through chemical changes:

Water is an example of a compound. Pure water always has the same

composition (the same relative amounts of hydrogen and oxygen) because it
consists of H2O molecules. Water can be broken down into the elements
hydrogen and oxygen by chemical means, such as by the use of an electric
current.
Each element is made up of a particular kind of atom: a pure sample of
the element aluminum contains only aluminum atoms, elemental copper
contains only copper atoms, and so on. Thus an element contains only one
kind of atom; a sample of iron contains many atoms, but they are all iron
atoms. Samples of certain pure elements do contain molecules; for example,
hydrogen gas contains H - H (usually written H 2) molecules, and oxygen gas
contains O - O (O2) molecules. However, any pure sample of an element
contains only atoms of that element, never any atoms of any other element.
 A compound always contains atoms of different elements. For example,
water contains hydrogen atoms and oxygen atoms, and there are always
exactly twice as many hydrogen atoms as oxygen atoms because water consists
of H-O-H molecules. A different compound, carbon dioxide, consists of CO 2
molecules and so contains carbon atoms and oxygen atoms (always in the ratio
1:2).
A compound, although it contains more than one type of atom, always
has the same composition—that is, the same combination of atoms. The
properties of a compound are typically very different from those of the elements
it contains. For example, the properties of water are quite different from the
properties of pure hydrogen and pure oxygen.

Mixture and Pure Substances

Virtually all of the matter around us consists of mixtures of substances.
For example, if you closely observe a sample of soil, you will see that it has
many types of components, including tiny grains of sand and remnants of
plants. The air we breathe is a complex mixture of such gases as oxygen,
nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and
water vapor. Even the sparkling water from a drinking fountain contains many
substances besides water.

A mixture can be defined as something that has variable composition.

For example, wood is a mixture (its composition varies greatly depending on the
tree from which it originates); wine is a mixture (it can be red or pale yellow,
sweet or dry); coffee is a mixture (it can be strong, weak, or bitter); and,
although it looks very pure, water pumped from deep in the earth is a mixture
(it contains dissolved minerals and gases).
A pure substance, on the other hand, will always have the same composition.
Pure substances are either elements or compounds. For example, pure water is
a compound containing individual H 2O molecules. However, as we find it in
nature, liquid water always contains other substances in addition to pure
water—it is a mixture. This is obvious from the different tastes, smells, and
colors of water samples obtained from various locations. However, if we take
great pains to purify samples of water from various sources (such as oceans,
lakes, rivers, and the earth’s interior), we always end up with the same pure
substance—water, which is made up only of H2O molecules. Pure water always
has the same physical and chemical properties and is always made of
molecules containing hydrogen and oxygen in exactly the same proportions,
regardless of the original source of the water. The properties of a pure
substance make it possible to identify that substance conclusively. Mixtures
can be separated into pure substances: elements and/or compounds.
 For example, the mixture known as air can be separated into oxygen
(element), nitrogen (element), water (compound), carbon dioxide (compound),
argon (element), and other pure substances.
Mixtures can be classified as either
homogeneous or heterogeneous. A homogeneous
mixture is the same throughout. For example, when we
dissolve some salt in water and stir well, all regions of
the resulting mixture have the same properties. A
homogeneous mixture is also called a solution. Of
course, different amounts of salt and water can be
mixed to form various solutions, but a homogeneous
mixture (a solution) does not
vary
in composition from one region to another. Figure 1.4 Air Components

The air around you is a solution. It is a

homogeneous mixture of gases. Solid solutions also
exist. Brass is a homogeneous mixture of the metals
copper and zinc. A heterogeneous mixture contains regions that have
different properties from those of other regions. For example, when we pour
sand into water, the resulting mixture has one region containing water and
another, very different region containing mostly sand.

References:

Books
Brown, Theodore L. et al. Chemistry the Central Science 11 ed., Prentice Hall
Inc., 2009 pp. 4-5
Tro, Nivaldo J. Introductory Chemistry 4th ed.,Prentice Hall Inc., 2012, pp. 89
Zumdahl, Steven S. and Decoste, Donald J. Introductory Chemistry. Centgage
Learning, 2010. pp. 57-71, 125-126

Online Resources
https://www.britannica.com/science/phase-state-of-matter

Physical and Chemical Changes Activity. Retrieved from

https://www.woodstown.org/cms/lib4/NJ01001783/Centricity/Domain/8/