Macroscale and Microscale Organic Experiments

Ken Williamson retired from Mt. Holyoke College where he taught the organic chemistry laboratory course. He was an established authority on microscale techniques and regularly held workshops and traveled to campuses in the U.S., Canada, and Europe to demonstrate the use of microscale. Katherine Masters is a Teaching Professor of Chemistry, a Laboratory Director, and Assistant Head for Student Engagement at Penn State University. She has developed numerous courses, including two new lab experiences for undergraduates that focus on research in academia and in industry. Her passion is curriculum development—creating new and updated materials to better engage students in their learning.

1. Getting Started.
2. Experimentation and Lab Safety.
3. Melting Points and Boiling Points.
4. Purifying Solids: Recrystallization and Sublimation.
5. Purifying Liquids: Simple and Fractional Distillation.
6. Steam and Vacuum Distillation.
7. Extraction.
8. Thin-Layer Chromatography.
9. Column Chromatography.
10. Gas Chromatography.
11. Infrared Spectroscopy.
12. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy.
13. Mass Spectroscopy.
14. UV-Vis Spectroscopy and Refractive Index.
15. Computational Chemistry.
16. Testing the Techniques.
17. Searching and Reading the Literature.
18. Nucleophilic Substitution Reactions of Alkyl Halides.
19. Alkenes from Alcohols: Cyclohexene from Cyclohexanol.
20. Grignard Synthesis of Triphenylmethanol and Benzoic Acid.
21. Esterification and Hydrolysis.
22. A Diels-Alder Reaction.
23. Textile Module: Recrystallization, Extraction, and Synthesis of Methyl Orange (Online only).
24. Forensics Module: Two-Step Synthesis and Blood Detection (Online only).
25. Medicines Module: Various Techniques and Synthesis of Acetaminophen (Online only).
Appendix: Laboratory Glassware