In the past few decades, consumers are more mindful of their health than they used to be, especially in food, drinks and medicines, and using sweeteners to replace sugar is an effective strategy. Alternative sugars are part of the category of sweeteners used in foods, also called non-nutritive sweeteners (NNS), and include artificial or natural sweeteners. These alternative sugars are characterized by low or zero calories, leading to a sharp increase in consumer demand for such sweeteners. Bioproduction of low-calorie sweeteners from low-cost raw materials becomes a hot spot. However, as the demand and use of alternative sugars have increased dramatically, the excessive use of alternative sugars has also been linked to hyperphagia and obesity-related disorders. In this article, we summarize the classification and synthesis of artificial sweeteners and the extraction methods of natural sweeteners, and discuss the health benefits and potential adverse effects of these alternative sugars.

The inspection and identification of fire debris plays an vital role in determining the nature of fire. Soil, as one of the most common physical evidences in fire, is likely to be seriously influenced by the many factors in the complex fire scene, such as high temperature, weathering and microbial degradation, even though soil physical evidence is hardly subjected to flame. To keep abreast of the latest research progress and provide a reference for the identification of accelerant residue physical evidence in soil, this paper has sorted out the current researches on physical evidence collection in fire scene, pretreatment in identification laboratory, interference factors of microbial degradation, weathering, and the coupling of them, and the prospect of research interests was outlooked at last.

Polymer chemistry as a burgeoning interdisciplinary professional is linked closely with the national economic construction, which is in the forefront of scientific development. How to cultivate polymer professional talents with the morality and aspirations, strong innovation ability, acclimatizing the requirement on the development of science and technology in new century has become one of the important subjects to the education workers. For achieving this goal, to the students in the “Tang Aoqing” Class of the top class of basic subject in Jilin University, whose traits are solid foundation, well subjective initiative and active scientific mind, we put forward three integrated teaching concepts: the integration of innovation teaching with curriculum ideology and politics, subjective initiative and frontier on scientific research. By combining the theory teaching and scientific research, we carried out the teaching innovation and exploration on the course content of polymer chemistry, teaching mode, classroom quiz. In the process of teaching practice, by developing the advantages of theory, practices and ideology of the key subject of polymer in Jilin University, we will try to improve the comprehensive quality of students on the teaching quality, talent cultivation and consciousness of innovation.

Nanotechnology leads the research progress in chip, energy, catalysis, and other fields. The authors have carried out beneficial exploration and practice on how to dig out the elements of beauty from this course, to achieve the effect of knowledge education and aesthetic education of science and technology. By combing the course content, a new teaching pattern of “knowledge imparting-aesthetic appreciation-artistic creation” is formed, and the aesthetic connection of “beauty of nanostructure”, “logic beauty of nano-research”, and “beauty of creation on micro-and nano-world” is condensed. All above can realize the integration of science and technology and art, and achieve the purpose of both harvesting knowledge and educating people aesthetically.

The interweaving and integration of ideological and political education framework with the professional knowledge system are key factors in deepening educational and teaching reforms. Combining with the characteristics of the course “Computers Application in Chemistry”, this paper proposes four aspects for innovative practice in course ideological and politicaleducation: mining and integrating relevant ideological and political elements; emphasizing moral education while designing case studies; strengthening training and guidance in teacher development; continuously exploring multidimensional teaching mode in practice. These efforts aim to better promote the implementation of the concept of “Great Ideological and PoliticalEducation” into specialized courses.

In the organic synthesis curriculum, students exhibit the shortcomings of superficial, fragmented and isolated knowledge caused by surface learning. In order to guide students to shift from surface learning to deep learning, we inspire students' learning motivation by creating contexts, clarify the logical link between new knowledge and existing knowledge by matchmaking, explore the essence of reactions to enhance the ability of transferring and expanding knowledge, combine theory and practice to settle real problems in which students can experience the development of thinking and deepening of cognition, and further promote the deep learning process with multi-scale and multi-angle feedback evaluation. Results show that deep learning guided by deep teaching can effectively improve the learning quality of students.

The theme of this learning project is “Synthesis of Centennial Drug Aspirin”. The key tasks of the project-based teaching include understanding carboxylic acids and their derivatives, clarifying the preparation principle of aspirin, designing a synthesis for aspirin, synthesizing aspirin and optimizing it. The project presents the design approach to a project-based teaching task of college chemistry, which combines theoretical and experimental teaching, and its practical teaching process.

Dialectical logic thinking is an advanced stage of abstract thinking, which plays a guiding role in innovation. This paper takes the teaching process of phthalimide synthesis experiment as an example, introduces the teaching process of analyzing reaction mechanism, experimental phenomena, literature reading and innovative approach of phthalimide with dialectical logic method, and some thoughts on cultivating students' ability to solve practical problems and innovate through dialectical logic thinking training. This article is also an exploration and attempts to promote students to actively combine learning, observation, and practice with thinking.

Scientists have synthesized a variety of DNA nano self-assembled structures by virtue of the good biocompatibility and programmability of DNA molecules, which have shown great application potential in the fields of molecular detection, biological imaging and drug delivery. Obviously, it is the right time to conduct DNA nanotechnology teaching exploration and experimental techniques training in undergraduate experiments. In this paper, DNA nanotechnology was combined with PCR, UV-vis spectrophotometer, polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) and gel imaging analysis. The experiment teaching can help students understand the basic of synthesis and detection method of DNA branched structures. To feedback experiment teaching by research achievements not only enrich the depth and breadth of the experiment teaching, but also broaden the students' scientific research field of vision, cultivate students' innovative thinking and improve the students' scientific research ability, which is of great significance to cultivate inter-disciplinary talent.

Based on the blended teaching approach, the necessity of incorporating advanced inquiry experiment projects into inorganic chemistry teaching has been analyzed. This study expounds the teaching practice process from five perspectives: project development, project classification, organization and implementation, achievement transformation, and continuous improvement. Through the integration of research and education, stratified teaching, Feynman learning method, evaluation-driven learning promotion, thinking-driven learning promotion strategies, as well as leveraging modern information technology, the professional education can be deeply integrated with ideological and political education, scientific research, innovation and entrepreneurship education, and practical education. The teaching reform practice can realize students' personal value while emphasizing the “academic” and “pedagogical” of the curriculum. This aims to cultivate the advanced abilities of chemistry normal students gradually.

In order to improve the practical and innovative ability of undergraduate students majoring in new energy materials and devices, the comprehensive experimental course of this major carries out teaching innovation. Compared with traditional teaching mode, the course has stepped into the deep-water area of the new engineering teaching reform, provided suitable content with the development of battery industry, and cultivated students' higher-order thinking and practical ability. Adhering to the teaching concept of “student-centered, theory and practice” and teaching mode of “semi-exploratory” led by teachers and students, this experimental course guides students to master the synthesis of battery material, battery assembly and electrochemical characterization. Based on the blended teaching mode of “three stages and eight processes”, students are organized to deeply participate in electrochemical performance testing through team exploration, and are familiar with experimental operation and data analysis of modern instruments. This experimental course organically combines professional knowledge of battery and scientific research practice to cultivate and enhance students' comprehensive ability.

Through the quantitative analysis and content analysis of pre-service chemistry teachers' education research literature in the last five years in Chinese mainland, the study found that: (1) Teachers in local normal colleges are still the main body of research in this field, and cross-school cooperation began to increase; (2) Chinese Journal of Chemical Education is still the main position of research literature in this field; (3) The “learning research” of pre-service chemistry teachers has become the most concerned theme. The knowledge, literacy, psychology and other perspectives of pre-service chemistry teachers are varied, but the “curriculum research” and “educational technology” are not paid enough attention; (4) Empirical research on pre-service chemistry teacher education has been in the absolute mainstream of core journals, among which the proportion of qualitative research is the largest.

After the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China which was held in October 2022, how to introduce the spirit of the 20th National Congress intotextbook has become an important component of teaching material reform and an important direction of teaching material revision. Based on the rectification work of the 2nd edition of Chemistry (General), it is necessary to pay attention to ideas and methods for integrating the spirit of the 20th National Congress into teaching materials. First of all, the spirit of the 20th National Congress puts forward requirements for teaching materials:The compilation of teaching materials should be based on the national strategical perspective, adhere to the correct political orientation. Secondly, when compiling, it is necessary to select the combination points related to chemical knowledge when integrating the spirit of the 20th National Congress into the professional textbook. Finally, it is necessary to pay attention to the form and style of the integration of the spirit of the 20th National Congress into the professional textbook, so as toachieve natural and smooth effect of ideological and political education.

The teaching cases that are highly relevant to the development of disciplinary research from the perspective of integrating science and education were constructed. Taking “artificial intelligence prediction of protein structure” as an example, this paper expounds the design and implementation of case teaching from the aspects of curriculum guidance, case teaching content design, case teaching organization and implementation, and case teaching effect evaluation. Teaching practice shows that through teaching cases, students are actively engaged in the application of artificial intelligence in the field of protein structure, build and practice multidisciplinary fusion thinking, and improve their ability to actively think and solve problems through autonomous learning of artificial intelligence technology to predict protein. Students have a significant sense of learning courses. The teaching case based on the integration of science and education has further improved thehigher-order, innovation and challengingof the curriculum.

The identification of organic compounds is one of the most important contents of organic chemistry. However, most text books and teaching activities for organic chemistry mainly stay on the discussion of theories of identified reactions, which are not related to practical cases in applied disciplines. This situation does not benefit for the integration of different disciplines, neither for the construction of a system of continuous knowledge for students. Base on this background, this paper connects the theories of chemical identification methods with practical uses in medicinal analysis, forensic examination, toxicological analysis of food, as well as clinical test, in a purpose to promote the publishing of text books for organic chemistry, and promote the integration of different disciplines.

Teaching design and practice process of Organic Chemistry, the basic course for food engineering professionals, was presented in this paper. Aimed for training qualified food engineer,the objectives of this course have been reformed and established based on OBE concept. It included integrating and optimizing the teaching content, strategizing teaching methods, and adopting a multiple evaluation. All these schedules would precisely improve essential qualities of food engineering professionals. The result demonstrated that achievement of course objectives was high, the teaching reform had been successfully realized and had met the graduation requirements of food engineering professionals. Finally, the shortage of this course was discussed and the direction for continuous improvement was proposed

Nucleophilic substitution reactions involving ambident nucleophiles are a unique type of reaction that typically results in mixed products due to different attack sites. This study investigates the reactivity of C and N in the cyanide ion as nucleophilic sites through quantum chemical calculations of the nucleophilic substitution reaction between ambiguous nucleophiles MCN (M=Na, Ag) and ethyl bromide (C₂H₅Br). The results are consistent with experimental data, and the calculations show that, for NaCN, the attack of the C atom as a nucleophile results in a lower energy barrier to form nitriles compared to the attack of the N atom to form isonitriles, leading to the formation of nitriles as the primary product. Conversely, for AgCN, the opposite is true, favoring the formation of isonitriles as the main product. The different reactivity of the two ambident nucleophiles is explained through analyses of the orbital interactions, Fukui functions, and HOMO orbital compositions, which reasonably elucidate the experimental and calculated results.

The geometric parameters and vibrational spectra between series of the carbonyl compound/water molecules are obtained through the common quantum chemical calculations to determine the quantitative relationship between the bond length of hydrogen-bond donor and its stretch vibration wavenumber. These exploratory results help students to understand effect of the basicity of the hydrogen-bond acceptor on the covalent bond length of the donor, its stretch vibration and the hydrogen-bond strength. We believe that introduction of this research-based teaching content into secondary school and university could be a good way to enable students to relate the concepts in chemistry, and enhance students' interests in learning chemistry and their ability to solve scientific problems.

Gaussian software was introduced for the demonstration of inter-molecular hydrogen bonding interactions between alanine dipeptide (with three different terminal groups) and nitrogenated graphene in class teaching of “Computers and Applied Chemistry” course. The obtained atomic distances, charge distributions and electrostatic potentials show the forming mechanism of hydrogen bond to students, enhance their understanding about the nature of hydrogen bond, and thus cultivate inter-disciplinary and innovative talents.

The oxygen atom in alcohols and ethers is more basic than that of the carbonyl group in aldehydes and ketones. However, the carbonyl oxygen atom of carboxylic acid and derivatives is protonated in their acid-catalyzed reactions. In addition, when carboxylic acids and derivatives are used as nucleophiles, their carbonyl oxygen atom serves as the nucleophilic site. This article rationally explains the reason why the carbonyl oxygen atom of carboxylic acids and derivatives is readily protonated in their acid-catalyzed reactions and serves as the nucleophilic site when they are used as nucleophiles through analyzing the electronic effect in their π43 conjugative systems between the carbonyl group with the oxygen/nitrogen atom. The rationale can be extended to the protonation of imidates, amidines, and guanidines. It would provide a deeper understanding on the influence of the electron density of different atoms in isolated systems and conjugative systems for students.