Organic Chemistry Lab

Teaching Module 1:
Lectures (8 h)
1. Safety and prevention in chemical laboratories.
2. Main techniques for the isolation and purification of organic compounds (extraction separations, crystallization, simple and fractional distillation, chromatography) and evaluation of product purity (via TLC and melting point determination).
3. Basic concepts of IR spectroscopy.
4. Experimental aspects of fundamental reactions in organic synthesis, aligned with the Organic Chemistry I course syllabus.
Laboratory Chemical Manipulations (64 h)
The laboratory experiments are introduced during pre-lab sessions and are designed to apply, through experimental work, the concepts covered in lectures. In particular, practical execution of separation and purification procedures of organic compounds and of simple organic reactions concerning the reactivity of functional groups (e.g. oxidations of alcohols, reduction of carbonyls, esterifications and aldol condensations) will be performed.
Teaching Module 2:
Laboratory Chemical Manipulations (64 h)
During the pre-lab sessions, a series of single-bench organic synthesis experiments related to the Organic Chemistry II course syllabus is presented and then carried out in the lab. Specifically, the program includes:
Functional group transformation (synthesis of an amide from an aromatic carboxylic acid)
Electrophilic aromatic substitution reaction (synthesis of an aromatic compound in two steps)
Nucleophilic aromatic substitution reaction
Synthesis of an aromatic heterocyclic molecule (in two steps)
Cross-coupling reaction in an aqueous environment
In addition to what has been described for Teaching Module 1, specific experiments include the use of HPLC (to monitor reaction progress) and NMR spectroscopy (for product characterization).

The final part of the course is dedicated to two individual tests:
Identification of an unknown carbonyl compound: synthesis of crystalline derivatives
Separation of a mixture of two unknown compounds (an amine and an inert compound) and their identification through the synthesis of crystalline derivatives.