Overview
The stockroom tab is used to select reagents for work in the laboratory. The unknowns tab is used to create practice unknowns, or retrieve assigned unknowns from the instructor.
Selecting Reagents
Reagents for titration experiments are selected by clicking on the chosen bottles from their respective categories in the stockroom tab. Bottles are returned by clicking the 
icon next to the bottle.
For acid-base experiments, any combination of an acid and base, acid and acid, or base and base can be selected for a titration. For acid-base experiments, an inert salt may also be selected. For potentiometric experiments, any combination of an oxidant and reductant can be selected.
Activity Coefficients
The activity coefficient switch allows the activity coefficients to be turned off in the calculations of pH and voltage for the titration experiments. Some instructors may use this to explore the importance of activity coefficients in equilibrium calculations.
Preset Experiments
Clicking on the Presets tab gives access to a list of titration experiments that are predefined and ready to run. To select one of these experiments, click on the Presets tab and then click on the desired experiment. The appropriate reagents will be automatically selected and placed in the lab. Several of the preset experiments come with reagents with unknown concentrations or unknown impurity levels. The purpose of these preset experiments is to determine the concentration of the unknown solution or the weight percentage of the unknown solid. The Assigned Unknowns publish the concentrations of your unknown to your Lab Book, so your instructor will be able to see what your concentration is. Custom presets can be created by setting up the laboratory in the desired configuration and then clicking the Save Lab button. Custom presets are in the My Saved Labs tab of the Presets tab.
The following point should be kept in mind: The preset experiments that are included with the installation cover many of the fundamental titration experiments in acid-base and electrochemistry. These preset experiments are only a small set of the large number of experiments that can be designed and implemented in this simulation.
Creating Practice Unknowns
Practice unknowns can be generated that will allow students to test titration procedures and calculations. The practice unknown view is accessed by clicking on the Unknowns tab and then clicking the "Create Unknown" button. The key elements of the unknown view include (a) the acid/base and potentiometric selector , (b) the category and bottle view, and (c) the X button in the upper right corner to close the unknown creation window.
A practice unknown is defined using the following steps:
- Use the acid/base-potentiometric selector to define the unknowns as either acid-base or potentiometric.
- Using the drop-down list, select a reagent that will be used as the unknown. The drop-down list can be accessed by clicking on the arrow next to the list name.
- Define the minimum and maximum range within which the random concentration or weight percent will be generated.
- Click the Create button in the bottom right corner.
- Repeat this process for the other bottles if necessary. Note that each bottle is an independent unknown and that up to two practice unknowns can be out in the laboratory at any given time. There is no limit to the number of practice unknowns that can be displayed under the Practice Unknowns menu in the Unknowns tab.
- Click on the X in the upper right corner to leave the unknown creation view without creating any unknowns.
- The actual concentrations or weight percentages of the unknowns are accessed by click the Reveal button next to the unknown. If an unknown is returned using the
icon and the unknown bottle is selected again, a new unknown concentration is automatically generated.