Practical Organic Chemistry: A student handbook of techniques

This book explains simply and concisely how to carry out the basic experimental procedures in the organic chemistry laboratory. It is a handbook of techniques to help students at all levels acquire the necessary skills to enable them to cope confidently with the demands of experimental work in a typical undergraduate course and, later on, in research. The emphasis is on general techniques, rather than on specific experiments in which they may be applied, because most course tutors prefer to make their own selection of tried and tested experiments. The chapters of this book are structured so that the early parts of each section concentrate on learning how to handle the equipment and on the basic principles of the technique, while the later parts are concerned with more advanced aspects, such as the optimisation of operating conditions. The section on carrying out reactions includes the techniques used for working with air and water sensitive reagents, without which much of modern organic chemistry would not be possible, and also provides concise descriptions of the methods used in hydrogenation, photochemistry and flash-vacuum pyrolysis. The sections on work-up and purification include the traditional methods of crystallization and distillation on large and small scale, and there is strong emphasis on chromatography, both the modern preparative scale methods and the analytical methods (TLC, GLC and HPLC), which are so vital in the monitoring and analysis of reactions. Safety aspects are emphasised throughout. This book should be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate chemists.