Organic Chemistry Lab

MODULE 1
Frontal lessons:
1. Safety and prevention in chemical laboratories.
2. Main isolation and purification techniques of organic compounds (extractive separations, crystallization, simple and fractional distillation, chromatography).
3. Introduction to IR spectroscopy.
4. Experimental aspects of the basic reactions of organic chemistry and evaluation of the purity of the products obtained (by TLC and measurement of the melting point).
Practical experiences: the experiences carried out in the laboratory are aimed at exemplifying the topics covered in class through experimental work.

MODULE 2
Practical experiences:
- transformations of functional groups: synthesis of an amide from an aromatic carboxylic acid
- two-step synthetic sequence: synthesis of an aromatic compound, via electrophilic aromatic substitution reaction
- synthesis of an azo dye via formation of a diazonium salt
- example of an aromatic nucleophilic substitution reaction
- two-step synthetic sequence: synthesis of an aromatic heterocyclic molecule
Common purification techniques for organic compounds are used: crystallization, acid/base separation, vacuum distillation, chromatographic separation on a silica gel column.
The last part of the course is dedicated to two individual tests:
- determination of an unknown carbonyl compound: synthesis of crystalline derivatives
- separation of a mixture of two unknown compounds and their determination by synthesis of crystalline derivatives. The identification of the products occurs through measurement of melting points, TLC slides, IR spectroscopy and analysis of the 1H NMR spectra of the unknown substances.