Essentials of Pericyclic and Photochemical Reactions

Professor Biswanath Dinda completed his undergraduate and postgraduate courses at the University of Calcutta, India. He received his PhD in 1974 for his research in the field of natural products chemistry, carried out in the Chemistry Department of Calcutta University in the research group of Prof. P. L. Majumder. Prof. Dinda spent his postdoc time at Ohio State University, working in the research group of Prof. Jack L. Beal at the College of Pharmacy from 1976-1978. After his return from the USA, he first worked as a lecturer in Chemistry in an undergraduate college, and then joined the Calcutta University Post Graduate Centre in Agartala, Tripura, India as a senior lecturer in 1981. From 1993, Prof. Dinda held a position as full Professor at Tripura University, from which he retired as senior-most professor in 2012. Prof. Dinda’s research interests have focused on the discovery of various herbal drugs from locally available plants. During his longstanding experience of over 30 years as lecturer and university professor, he has taught various (organic) chemistry courses, especially in the chemistry of pericyclic and photochemical reactions and the spectroscopy and chemistry of natural products.

Part I Pericyclic Reactions: General aspects of pericyclic reactions.- Electrocyclic reactions.- Cycloaddition reactions.- Sigmatropic rearrangements.- Group transfer reactions.- Part II Photochemical Reactions: Principles of photochemical reactions.- Photochemistry of alkenes, dienes, and polyenes.- Photochemistry of carbonyl compounds.- Photochemistry of aromatic compounds.- Photofragmentation reactions.- Photochemistry of nature and applied photochemistry.-Appendix: Solutions to the problems.