Is the reductionist approach to teaching chemical principles in the laboratory adequate for students to make effective evaluations? In this work, using the example of sunscreens, students first assessed the analytical chemistry parameters of the active ingredients, later comparing and contrasting them with organic chemistry information for…

Low cost, open-source analytical instrumentation has the potential to increase educational outcomes for students and enable large-scale citizen science projects. Many of these instruments rely on smartphones to collect the data, mainly because they can effectively leverage a dramatic price-to-performance ratio of the optical sensors. However,…

In recent years, the use of boron-containing reagents in palladium-assisted C-C coupling reactions (the Suzuki reaction) has gained prominence due to the vast array of reagents commercially available. Consequently, the generation of carbon-carbon bonds, namely of functionalized biphenyl systems, is at present considered the backbone of organic…

A two-part demonstration was conducted in our first-semester organic chemistry course designed to introduce students to the formation of alcohols, regioselective reactions, and analysis of organic products by NMR analysis. This demonstration utilized the oxymercuration-demercuration sequence to prepare an alcohol from an alkene in a Markovnikov…

A porphyrin-based test paper has been designed and prepared. It can be used to analyze for Al[superscript 3+] and Fe[superscript 3+] in aqueous solution. An experiment employing the test paper can help students understand basic principles of spectrophotometry and how spectrophotometry is used in analyzing for metal ions. (Contains 1 scheme and 1…

A laboratory exercise using [superscript 27]Al NMR spectrometry to study the tetrahedral tetrahaloaluminate anions has been developed. Spectra of the homoleptic complexes [AlX[subscript 4]]-and the dihalide anions [AlX[subscript 4]Y[subscript 4-n]]-(X, Y = Cl, Br, or I) are acquired, then the pairwise-additivity concept developed by Vladimiroff…

Dehydrations of "cis"- and "trans"-2-methylcyclohexanol mixtures were carried out with 60% sulfuric acid at 78-80 [degrees]C as a function of time and the products were identified by gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) analysis. The compounds identified in the reaction mixtures include alkenes, 1-, 3-, and 4-methylcyclohexenes and…

The preparation and characterization of two air-stable Rh(I) complexes bearing a chelating N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligand is described. The synthesis involves the preparation of a Ag(I)-NHC complex and its use as carbene transfer agent to a Rh(I) precursor. The so obtained complex can be further reacted with carbon monoxide to give the…

An upper-division laboratory project has been developed as a collaborative investigation of a reaction routinely taught in organic chemistry courses: the reduction of carbonyl compounds by borohydride reagents. Determination of several trends regarding structure-activity relationship was possible because each student contributed his or her results…

SIPCAn, an acronym for separation, isolation, purification, characterization, and analysis, is presented as a one-term, integrated project for the first-term undergraduate organic laboratory course. Students are assigned two mixtures of unknown organic compounds--a mixture of two liquid compounds and a mixture of two solid compounds--at the…

Red yeast rice, produced by fermenting the fungus, "Monascus purpureus", on rice ("Oryza sativa" L. gramineae), is commonly used as a dietary supplement. It contains lovastatin, a member of the statin family of compounds, and is licensed for use as a cholesterol-lowering agent. This experiment involves the isolation and structure elucidation of…

A simple synthesis is proposed from inexpensive reactants of a copper(I) derivative that exhibits strong photoluminescence and, in the crystalline form, exhibits strong triboluminescence. This laboratory provides an opportunity for introducing students to the phenomenon of triboluminescence. (Contains 1 scheme and 4 figures.)

Understanding stereochemistry is an important and difficult task for students to master in organic chemistry. In both introductory and advanced courses, students are encouraged to explore the spatial relationships between molecules, but this exploration is often limited either to the lecture hall or the confines of the library. As such, we sought…

Increasingly, the undergraduate chemistry curriculum includes nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Advanced NMR techniques are often taught including two-dimensional gradient-based experiments. An investigation of intermolecular forces including viscosity, by a variety of methods, is often integrated in the undergraduate physical and…

By adding a large quantity of Cl[superscript -] to an aqueous solution of CoCl[subscript 2][multiplied by]6H[subscript 2]O, a mixture containing a red octahedral cobalt complex and a blue tetrahedral complex is produced. When the solution temperature is modified, the equilibrium constant, K[subscript eq], of the complexation reaction is shifted…