Organic Chemistry

Source: Laboratory of Dr. Ryan Richards — Colorado School of Mines Catalysis is among the most important fields of modern technology and presently accounts for approximately 35% of the gross domestic product (GDP) and sustenance of approximately 33% of the global population through fertilizers produced via the Haber process.1 Catalysts are systems that facilitate chemical reactions by lowering the activation energy and influencing the selectivity. Catalysis will be a central technology in...

Source: Laboratory of Dr. Philip Miller — Imperial College London Many chemical experiments require elevated temperatures before any reaction is observed, however heating solutions of reactants can lead to loss of reactants and/or solvent via evaporation if their boiling points are sufficiently low. In order to ensure no loss of reactants or solvent, a reflux system is used in order to condense any vapors produced on heating and return these condensates to the reaction...

Source: Laboratory of Dr. Dana Lashley - College of William and Mary Demonstration by: Matt Smith When new bonds are formed in the course of a chemical reaction, it requires that the involved species (atoms or molecules) come in very close proximity and collide into one another. The collisions between these species are more frequent and effective the higher the speed at which these molecules are moving. A widely used rule of thumb, which has its roots in the Arrhenius equation1, states that...

Source: Hsin-Chun Chiu and Tyler J. Morin, laboratory of Dr. Ian Tonks—University of Minnesota Twin Cities Schlenk lines and high vacuum lines are both used to exclude moisture and oxygen from reactions by running reactions under a slight overpressure of inert gas (usually N2 or Ar) or under vacuum. Vacuum transfer has been developed as a method separate solvents (other volatile reagents) from drying agents (or other nonvolatile agents) and dispense them to reaction or storage vessels while...

Source: Laboratory of Dr. Neil Branda — Simon Fraser University Degassing refers to the process by which dissolved gases are removed from a liquid. The presence of dissolved gases such as oxygen or carbon dioxide can impede chemical reactions that utilize sensitive reagents, interfere with spectroscopic measurements, or can induce unwanted bubble formation. A number of different techniques are available for degassing liquids; some of these include heating, ultrasonic agitation, chemical...

Source: Laboratory of Dr. Dana Lashley - College of William and Mary Demonstrated by: Timothy Beck and Lucas Arney Many reactions in organic chemistry are moisture-sensitive and must be carried out under careful exclusion of water. In these cases the reagents have a high affinity to react with water from the atmosphere and if left exposed the desired reaction will not take place or give poor yields, because the reactants are chemically altered. In order to prevent undesired reactions with H2O...

Source: Laboratory of Dr. Jimmy Franco - Merrimack College Recrystallization is a technique used to purify solid compounds.1 Solids tend to be more soluble in hot liquids than in cold liquids. During recrystallization, an impure solid compound is dissolved in a hot liquid until the solution is saturated, and then the liquid is allowed to cool.2 The compound should then form relatively pure crystals. Ideally, any impurities that are present will remain in the solution and will not be...

Source: Laboratory of Dr. Ana J. García-Sáez — University of Tübingen Most samples of interest are mixtures of many different components. Sample preparation, a key step in the analytical process, removes interferences that may affect the analysis. As such, developing separation techniques is an important endeavor not just in academia, but also in industry.  One way to separate mixtures is to use their solubility properties. In this short paper, we will deal with aqueous solutions. The...

Source: Laboratory of Dr. Jay Deiner — City University of New York Extraction is a crucial step in most chemical analyses. It entails removing the analyte from its sample matrix and passing it into the phase required for spectroscopic or chromatographic identification and quantification. When the sample is a solid and the required phase for analysis is a liquid, the process is called solid-liquid extraction. A simple and broadly applicable form of solid-liquid extraction entails combining the...

Source: Dr. Melanie Pribisko Yen and Grace Tang — California Institute of Technology Rotary evaporation is a technique most commonly used in organic chemistry to remove a solvent from a higher-boiling point compound of interest. The rotary evaporator, or "rotovap", was invented in 1950 by the chemist Lyman C. Craig. The primary use of a rotovap is to dry and purify samples for downstream applications. Its speed and ability to handle large volumes of solvent make rotary evaporation a preferred...

Source: Laboratory of Dr. Nicholas Leadbeater — University of Connecticut  Distillation is perhaps the most common laboratory technique employed by chemists for the purification of organic liquids. Compounds in a mixture with different boiling points separate into individual components when the mixture is carefully distilled. The two main types of distillation are "simple distillation" and "fractional distillation", and both are widely used in organic chemistry laboratories. Simple distillation...

Source: Laboratory of Dr. Jimmy Franco - Merrimack College X-ray crystallography is a method commonly used to determine the spatial arrangement of atoms in a crystalline solid, which allows for the determination of the three-dimensional shape of a molecule or complex. Determining the three-dimensional structure of a compound is of particular importance, since a compound's structure and function are intimately related. Information about a compound's structure is often used to explain its...

Source: Laboratory of Dr. Yuri Bolshan — University of Ontario Institute of Technology Thin layer chromatography (TLC) is a chromatographic method used to separate mixtures of non-volatile compounds. A TLC plate consists of a thin layer of adsorbent material (the stationary phase) fixed to an appropriate solid support such as plastic, aluminum, or glass1. The sample(s) and reference compound(s) are dissolved in an appropriate solvent and applied near the bottom edge of the TLC plate in small...

Source: Laboratory of Dr. Jimmy Franco - Merrimack College Column chromatography is one of the most useful techniques for purifying compounds. This technique utilizes a stationary phase, which is packed in a column, and a mobile phase that passes through the column. This technique exploits the differences in polarity between compounds, allowing the molecules to be facilely separated.1 The two most common stationary phases for column chromatography are silica gel (SiO2) and alumina (Al2O3), with...

Source: Laboratory of Dr. Henrik Sundén – Chalmers University of Technology Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a vital analysis technique for organic chemists. With the help of NMR, the work in the organic lab has been facilitated tremendously. Not only can it provide information about the structure of a molecule but also determine the content and purity of a sample. Compared with other commonly encountered techniques for organic chemists — such as thermal analysis and mass...