Syllabus

IIT JAM Chemistry Syllabus

Physical Chemistry

Atomic and Molecular Structure: Planck’s black body radiation, Photoelectric effect, Bohr’s theory, de Broglie postulate, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle; Schrödinger’s wave equation (including mathematical treatment), postulates of quantum mechanics, normalized and orthogonal wave functions, its complex conjugate (idea of complex numbers) and significance of Ѱ2 ; Operators; Particle in one-dimension box, radial and angular wave functions for hydrogen atom, radial probability distribution; Finding maxima of distribution functions (idea of maxima and minima), energy spectrum of hydrogen atom; Shapes of s, p, d and f orbitals; Pauli’s Exclusion Principle; Hund’s rule of maximum multiplicity.
 
Gaseous State: Kinetic molecular model of a gas: collision frequency; collision diameter; mean free path and viscosity of gases; Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution: molecular velocities, law of equipartition of energy, molecular basis of heat capacities; Ideal gases, and deviations from ideal gas behaviour, van der Waals equation of state; critical state, law of corresponding states.

Liquid State: Physical properties of Liquid, vapour pressure, surface tension and co-efficient of viscosity and their applications; effect of concentration of solutes on surface tension and viscosity; effect of temperature on viscosity of liquids.  

Solid State: Unit Cells, Miller indices, crystal systems and Bravais Lattices, elementary applications of vectors to crystal systems; X-ray diffraction, Bragg’s Law, Structure of NaCl, CsCl, and KCl, diamond, and graphite; Close packing in metals and metal compounds, semiconductors, insulators; Defects in crystals, lattice energy; isomorphism; heat capacity of solids.
 
Chemical Thermodynamics: Mathematical treatment: Exact and in-exact differentials, partial derivatives, Euler’s reciprocity, cyclic rule; Reversible and irreversible processes; Laws of thermodynamics, thermochemistry, thermodynamic functions, such as enthalpy, entropy, and Gibbs free energy, their properties and applications; Partial molar quantities, dependence of thermodynamic parameters on composition, Gibbs Duhem equation, chemical potential and its applications.
 
Chemical and Phase Equilibria: Law of mass action; Kp, Kc, Kx and Kn; Effect of temperature on K; Le-Chatelier principle; Ionic equilibria in solutions; pH and buffer solutions; Salt hydrolysis; Solubility and solubility product; Acid – base titration curves; Indicators; Dilute solutions; Raoult’s and Henry’s Laws and their applications; Colligative properties; Gibbs phase rule; Phase equilibria; single and two-component phase diagrams.
 
Electrochemistry: Conductivity, equivalent and molar conductivity and their properties; Kohlrausch law; DebyeHückelOnsager equation; Ionic velocities, mobilities, transference numbers; Applications of conductance measurement; Quantitative aspects of Faraday’s laws of electrolysis, applications of electrolysis in metallurgy and industry; Electromotive force of a cell, Nernst equation; Standard electrode potential, Electrochemical series; Concentration cells with and without transference; Applications of EMF measurements including potentiometric titrations.
 
Chemical Kinetics: Order and molecularity of a reaction, differential and integrated form of rate expressions - basic ideas of integration and differentiation; Kinetics of opposing, parallel, and consecutive reactions; Steady state approximation in reaction mechanisms; Chain reactions; Uni-molecular reaction (Lindemann mechanism); Temperature dependence of reaction rates, Arrhenius equation; activation energy; Collision theory of reaction rates; Types of catalysts, specificity and selectivity, mechanisms of catalyzed reactions at solid surfaces; Enzyme catalysis (Michaelis-Menten mechanism, Double reciprocal plot), Acid-base catalysis.
 
Adsorption: Gibbs adsorption equation; adsorption isotherm; types of adsorption; surface area of adsorbents; surface films on liquids. 

Spectroscopy: Beer-Lambert law; fundamental concepts of rotational, vibrational, electronic and magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

Organic Chemistry

Basic Concepts in Organic Chemistry and Stereochemistry: Electronic effects (resonance, inductive, hyperconjugation) and steric effects and its applications (acid/base property); optical isomerism in compounds with and without any stereocenters (allenes, biphenyls); conformation of acyclic systems (substituted ethane/n-propane/n-butane) and cyclic systems, substituted cyclohexanes, and polycyclic (cis and trans decalins) systems. 

Organic Reaction Mechanism and Synthetic Applications: Chemistry of reactive intermediates (carbocations, carbanions, free radicals, carbenes, nitrenes, benzynes); nucleophilic substitution, elimination reactions and mechanisms; Hofmann-Curtius-Lossen rearrangement, Wolff rearrangement, Simmons-Smith reaction, Reimer-Tiemann reaction, Michael reaction, Darzens reaction, Wittig reaction and McMurry reaction; Pinacolpinacolone, Favorskii, benzilic acid rearrangement, Baeyer-Villeger reaction; oxidation and reduction reactions in organic chemistry; Organometallic reagents in organic synthesis (Grignard, organolithium , organocopper and organozinc (Reformatsky only); Diels-Alder, electrocyclic and sigmatropic reactions; functional group inter-conversions and structural problems using chemical reactions.

Qualitative Organic Analysis: Identification of functional groups by chemical tests; elementary UV, IR and 1H NMR spectroscopic techniques as tools for structural elucidation of simple organic molecules. 

Natural Products Chemistry: Chemistry of alkaloids, steroids, terpenes, carbohydrates, amino acids, peptides and nucleic acids. 

Aromatic and Heterocyclic Chemistry: Monocyclic, bicyclic and tricyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and monocyclic compounds with one hetero atom: synthesis, reactivity and properties, aromaticity; Electrophilic and nucleophilic aromatic substitution reactions. 

Inorganic Chemistry

Periodic Table: Periodic classification of elements, Aufbau’s principle, periodicity; Variations of orbital energy, effective nuclear charge, atomic, covalent, and ionic radii, ionization enthalpy, electron gain enthalpy, and electronegativity with atomic number, electronic configuration of diatomic molecules (first and second row elements).

Extractions of Metals: General methods of isolation and purification of elements; Principles and applications of Ellingham diagram.  
 
Chemical Bonding and shapes of molecules: lonic bond: Packing of ions in crystals, radius ratio rule, Born-Landé equation, Kapustinskii expression, Madelung constant, Born-Haber cycle, solvation energy, polarizing power and polarizability; Fajan’s rules; Covalent bond: Lewis structure, valence bond theory. Hybridization, molecular orbital theory, molecular orbital diagrams of diatomic and simple polyatomic molecules and ions; Multiple bonding (σ and π bond approach) and bond lengths; van der Waals forces, ion-dipole forces, dipole-dipole interactions, induced dipole interactions, instantaneous dipole-induced dipole interactions, hydrogen bonding; Effect of intermolecular forces on melting and boiling points, solubility energetics of dissolution process; Bond dipole, dipole moment, and molecular polarizabilities; VSEPR theory and shapes of molecules; ionic solids. 

Main Group Elements (s and p blocks): Reactions of alkali and alkaline earth metals with oxygen, hydrogen and water; Alkali and alkaline earth metals in liquid ammonia; Gradation in properties of main group element in a group; Inert pair effect; Synthesis, structure and properties of diborane, ammonia, silane, phosphine and hydrogen sulphide; Allotropes of carbon; Oxides of nitrogen, phosphorus and sulphur; Oxoacids of phosphorus, sulphur and chlorine; Halides of silicon and phosphorus; Synthesis and properties of borazine, silicone and phosphazene; Synthesis and reactions of xenon fluorides. 

Transition Metals (d block): Characteristics of d-block elements; oxide, hydroxide and salts of first row metals; coordination complexes: structure, isomerism, reaction mechanism and electronic spectra; VB, MO and crystal field theoretical approaches for structure, color and magnetic properties of metal complexes; Organometallic compounds with metal-ligand single and multiple bonds (such as metal carbonyls, metal nitrosyls and metallocenes); Homogenous catalysis involving Wilkinson’s catalyst. 

Bioinorganic Chemistry: Essentials and trace elements of life; basic reactions in the biological systems and the role of metal ions, especially Fe2+, and Zn2+; structure and function of myoglobin, hemoglobin and carbonic anhydrase. 

Instrumental Methods of Analysis: Basic principles; instrumentations and simple applications of conductometry, potentiometry and UV-vis spectrophotometry; analyses of water, air and soil samples. 

Analytical Chemistry: Principles of qualitative and quantitative analysis; Acid-base, oxidation- reduction and complexometric titrations using EDTA; Precipitation reactions; Use and types of indicators; Use of organic reagents in inorganic analysis; Radioactivity, nuclear reactions, applications of isotopes; Mathematical treatment in error analysis, elementary statistics and probability theory. 

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CSIR NET Chemical Science Syllabus

Inorganic Chemistry

1. Chemical periodicit
2. Structure and bonding in homo- and heteronuclear molecules, including shapes of molecules (VSEPR Theory).
3. Concepts of acids and bases, Hard-Soft acid base concept, Non-aqueous solvents.
4. Main group elements and their compounds: Allotropy, synthesis, structure and bonding, industrial importance of the compounds.
5. Transition elements and coordination compounds: structure, bonding theories, spectral and magnetic properties, reaction mechanisms.
6. Inner transition elements: spectral and magnetic properties, redox chemistry, analytical applications.
7. Organometallic compounds: synthesis, bonding and structure, and reactivity. Organometallics in homogeneous catalysis.
8. Cages and metal clusters.
9. Analytical chemistry- separation, spectroscopic, electro- and thermoanalytical methods.
10. Bioinorganic chemistry: photosystems, porphyrins, metalloenzymes, oxygen transport, electron- transfer reactions; nitrogen fixation, metal complexes in medicine.
11. Characterisation of inorganic compounds by IR, Raman, NMR, EPR, Mössbauer, UV-vis, NQR, MS, electron spectroscopy and microscopic techniques.
12. Nuclear chemistry: nuclear reactions, fission and fusion, radio-analytical techniques and activation analysis.

Physical Chemistry

1. Basic principles of quantum mechanics: Postulates; operator algebra; exactly- solvable systems: particle-in-a-box, harmonic oscillator and the hydrogen atom, including shapes of atomic orbitals; orbital and spin angular momenta; tunneling.
2. Approximate methods of quantum mechanics: Variational principle; perturbation theory up to second order in energy; applications.
3. Atomic structure and spectroscopy; term symbols; many-electron systems and antisymmetry principle.
4. Chemical bonding in diatomics; elementary concepts of MO and VB theories; Huckel theory for conjugated π-electron systems.
5. Chemical applications of group theory; symmetry elements; point groups; character tables; selection rules.
6. Molecular spectroscopy: Rotational and vibrational spectra of diatomic molecules; electronic spectra; IR and Raman activities – selection rules; basic principles of magnetic resonance.
7. Chemical thermodynamics: Laws, state and path functions and their applications; thermodynamic description of various types of processes; Maxwell’s relations; spontaneity and equilibria; temperature and pressure dependence of thermodynamic quantities; Le Chatelier principle; elementary description of phase transitions; phase equilibria and phase rule; thermodynamics of ideal and non-ideal gases, and solutions.
8. Statistical thermodynamics: Boltzmann distribution; kinetic theory of gases; partition functions and their relation to thermodynamic quantities – calculations for model systems.
9. Electrochemistry: Nernst equation, redox systems, electrochemical cells; DebyeHuckel theory; electrolytic conductance – Kohlrausch’s law and its applications; ionic equilibria; conductometric and potentiometric titrations.
10. Chemical kinetics: Empirical rate laws and temperature dependence; complex reactions; steady state approximation; determination of reaction mechanisms; collision and transition state theories of rate constants; unimolecular reactions; enzyme kinetics; salt effects; homogeneous catalysis; photochemical reactions.
11. Colloids and surfaces: Stability and properties of colloids; isotherms and surface area; heterogeneous catalysis.
12. Solid state: Crystal structures; Bragg’s law and applications; band structure of solids.
13. Polymer chemistry: Molar masses; kinetics of polymerization.
14. Data analysis: Mean and standard deviation; absolute and relative errors; linear regression; covariance and correlation coefficient.

Organic Chemistry

1. IUPAC nomenclature of organic molecules including regio- and stereoisomers.
2. Principles of stereochemistry: Configurational and conformational isomerism in acyclic and cyclic compounds; stereogenicity, stereoselectivity, enantioselectivity, diastereoselectivity and asymmetric induction.
3. Aromaticity: Benzenoid and non-benzenoid compounds – generation and reactions.
4. Organic reactive intermediates: Generation, stability and reactivity of carbocations, carbanions, free radicals, carbenes, benzynes and nitrenes.
5. Organic reaction mechanisms involving addition, elimination and substitution reactions with electrophilic, nucleophilic or radical species. Determination of reaction pathways.
6. Common named reactions and rearrangements – applications in organic synthesis.
7. Organic transformations and reagents: Functional group interconversion including oxidations and reductions; common catalysts and reagents (organic, inorganic, organometallic and enzymatic). Chemo, regio and stereoselective transformations.
8. Concepts in organic synthesis: Retrosynthesis, disconnection, synthons, linear and convergent synthesis, umpolung of reactivity and protecting groups.
9. Asymmetric synthesis: Chiral auxiliaries, methods of asymmetric induction – substrate, reagent and catalyst controlled reactions; determination of enantiomeric and diastereomeric excess; enantio-discrimination. Resolution – optical and kinetic.
10. Pericyclic reactions – electrocyclisation, cycloaddition, sigmatropic rearrangements and other related concerted reactions. Principles and applications of photochemical reactions in organic chemistry.
11. Synthesis and reactivity of common heterocyclic compounds containing one or two heteroatoms (O, N, S).
12. Chemistry of natural products: Carbohydrates, proteins and peptides, fatty acids, nucleic acids, terpenes, steroids and alkaloids. Biogenesis of terpenoids and alkaloids.
13. Structure determination of organic compounds by IR, UV-Vis, 1H & 13C NMR and Mass spectroscopic techniques.

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GATE Chemistry Syllabus

Section 1: Physical Chemistry

Surfaces and Interfaces: Physisorption and chemisorption. Langmuir, Freundlich and BET isotherms. Surface catalysis: Langmuir-Hinshelwood mechanism. Surface tension, viscosity. Self-assembly. Physical chemistry of colloids, micelles and macromolecules.

Section 2: Inorganic Chemistry

Main Group Elements: Hydrides, halides, oxides, oxoacids, nitrides, sulfides – shapes and reactivity. Structure and bonding of boranes, carboranes, silicones, silicates, boron nitride, borazines and phosphazenes. Allotropes of carbon. Chemistry of noble gases, pseudohalogens, and interhalogen compounds. Acid-base concepts.

Transition Elements: Coordination chemistry – structure and isomerism, theories of bonding (VBT, CFT, and MOT). Energy level diagrams in various crystal fields, CFSE, applications of CFT, Jahn-Teller distortion. Electronic spectra of transition metal complexes: spectroscopic term symbols, selection rules, Orgel diagrams, charge-transfer spectra. Magnetic properties of transition metal complexes. Reaction mechanisms: kinetic and thermodynamic stability, substitution and redox reactions.

Lanthanides and Actinides: Recovery. Periodic properties, spectra and magnetic properties. Organometallics: 18-Electron rule; metal-alkyl, metal-carbonyl, metal-olefin and metal carbene complexes and metallocenes. Fluxionality in organometallic complexes. Types of organometallic reactions. Homogeneous catalysis - Hydrogenation, hydroformylation, acetic acid synthesis, metathesis and olefin oxidation. Heterogeneous catalysis - FischerTropsch reaction, Ziegler-Natta polymerization.

Radioactivity: Decay processes, half-life of radioactive elements, fission and fusion processes.

Bioinorganic Chemistry: Ion (Na+ and K+) transport, oxygen binding, transport and utilization, electron transfer reactions, nitrogen fixation, metalloenzymes containing magnesium, molybdenum, iron, cobalt, copper and zinc.

Solids: Crystal systems and lattices, Miller planes, crystal packing, crystal defects, Bragg’s law, ionic crystals, structures of AX, AX2, ABX3 type compounds, spinels, band theory, metals and semiconductors.

Instrumental Methods of Analysis: UV-visible spectrophotometry, NMR and ESR spectroscopy, mass spectrometry. Chromatography including GC and HPLC. Electroanalytical methods- polarography, cyclic voltammetry, ion-selective electrodes. Thermoanalytical methods.

Section 3: Organic Chemistry

Stereochemistry: Chirality of organic molecules with or without chiral centres and determination of their absolute configurations. Relative stereochemistry in compounds having more than one stereogenic centre. Homotopic, enantiotopic and diastereotopic atoms, groups and faces. Stereoselective and stereospecific synthesis. Conformational analysis of acyclic and cyclic compounds. Geometrical isomerism. Configurational and conformational effects, and neighbouring group participation on reactivity and selectivity/specificity.

Reaction Mechanisms: Basic mechanistic concepts – kinetic versus thermodynamic control, Hammond’s postulate and Curtin-Hammett principle. Methods of determining reaction mechanisms through identification of products, intermediates and isotopic labeling. Nucleophilic and electrophilic substitution reactions (both aromatic and aliphatic). Addition reactions to carbon-carbon and carbon-heteroatom (N,O) multiple bonds. Elimination reactions. Reactive intermediates – carbocations, carbanions, carbenes, nitrenes, arynes and free radicals. Molecular rearrangements involving electron deficient atoms.

Organic Synthesis: Synthesis, reactions, mechanisms and selectivity involving the following classes of compounds – alkenes, alkynes, arenes, alcohols, phenols, aldehydes, ketones, carboxylic acids, esters, nitriles, halides, nitro compounds, amines and amides. Uses of Mg, Li, Cu, B, Zn and Si based reagents in organic synthesis. Carbon-carbon bond formation through coupling reactions - Heck, Suzuki, Stille and Sonogoshira. Concepts of multistep synthesis - retrosynthetic analysis, strategic disconnections, synthons and synthetic equivalents. Umpolung reactivity – formyl and acyl anion equivalents. Selectivity in organic synthesis – chemo-, regio- and stereoselectivity. Protection and deprotection of functional groups. Concepts of asymmetric synthesis – resolution (including enzymatic), desymmetrization and use of chiral auxilliaries. Carbon-carbon bond forming reactions through enolates (including boron enolates), enamines and silyl enol ethers. Michael addition reaction. Stereoselective addition to C=O groups (Cram and Felkin-Anh models).

Pericyclic Reactions and Photochemistry: Electrocyclic, cycloaddition and sigmatropic reactions. Orbital correlations - FMO and PMO treatments. Photochemistry of alkenes, arenes and carbonyl compounds. Photooxidation and photoreduction. Di-π-methane rearrangement, Barton reaction.

Heterocyclic Compounds: Structure, preparation, properties and reactions of furan, pyrrole, thiophene, pyridine, indole, quinoline and isoquinoline.

Biomolecules: Structure, properties and reactions of mono- and di-saccharides, physicochemical properties of amino acids, chemical synthesis of peptides, structural features of proteins, nucleic acids, steroids, terpenoids, carotenoids, and alkaloids.

Spectroscopy: Applications of UV-visible, IR, NMR and Mass spectrometry in the structural determination of organic molecules

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