Virtual lab on analytical chemistry for pharmacy students of distance learning

Extramural education along with certain advantages has some disadvantages, including the lack of the possibility of acquiring experimental work skills. Pharmacy students of correspondence courses should study a number of chemical disciplines, including analytical chemistry. Virtual labs could solve the problem of lack of laboratory training, at least partially. Virtual laboratory works on chemistry, described in the literature, are built on the basis of multimedia technologies (audio, video, animations, presentations and other visual effects). The purpose of this work is the creation of a computer program that would not only visually simulate the process of acid-base titration, but also create a task for a student, i.e. – definition of titrant volume and calculation the concentration of an analyte in a virtual sample. Virtual laboratory work was developed in the LabVIEW12 package (National Instruments, USA). A file of virtual laboratory work along with all educational materials is received via e-mail by all students. When you open the laboratory work file, the front panel of the virtual instrument shows the setup for titration, a series of indicator windows for displaying information, and a virtual monitor screen for displaying the titration curve. Then the program guides the student through the following steps: registration of personal data and definition embodiment, visualization of titration and formation of the titration curve, mapping the first derivative of the titration curve, increasing the scale of the graph and determining the volume of titrant at the equivalence point. After finishing the task, the student makes a print-screen, inserts it into his report with the calculations and sends it to the teacher via e-mail for verification in a timely manner. Thus, the described laboratory work allows the student to observe the formation of the titration curve and its subsequent transformation, as well as to master the processing of titration results. Development of virtual laboratory works similar to other methods for quantitative analysis will form a complete virtual laboratory practice, which can increase the level of training of pharmacy students and eventually move to distance learning.