Units of measurement of solutes in solution. Normality, molality, molarity, millimol and ppm. Water- structure and properties. Principles of glass and reference electrodes, types of electrodes, complications of pH measurement (dependence of pH on ionic strength, electrode contamination and sodium error) and use of pH paper. pH, pOH, Hendersen-Hasselbach equations, buffers, pH of body fluids, buffers in body fluids, red blood cells and tissues. Measurement of pH by indicators. Colloids and their application, viscosity, surface tension and Donnan membrane equilibrium.

Energy, wavelength, wave number and frequency.
Absorption and emission spectra, Beer-Lambert’s law, light absorption and its transmittance. UV and visible spectrophotometry-principles, instrumentation and applications on enzyme assay and kinetic assays, protein structural studies, nucleic acid structural studies. Principles and applications of NMR, ESR and mass spectrometry.
 

Principles of thermodynamics and their applications in biochemistry - introduction, thermodynamic system, thermodynamic state functions, first and second laws of thermodynamics, concept of free energy, standard free energy, determination of AG for a reaction, relation between equilibrium constant and standard free energy change, biological standard state and standard free energy change in coupled reactions.

Introduction of biological oxidation-reduction reactions - introduction, redox potentials, relation between standard reduction potentials and free energy change (derivations and numericals included). High-energy phosphate compounds - introduction, phosphate group transfers-free energy of hydrolysis of ATP and sugar phosphates along with reasons for high AG.

Basic principles and types of centrifugation-rotors, boundary, differential, density gradient, zonal isopycnic, equilibrium (Introductory idea). Sedimentation - sedimentation velocity, preparative and analytical ultracentrifugation techniques.