Experimental Organic Chemistry: A Miniscale and Microscale Approach

This proven and well-tested laboratory manual for organic chemistry students contains procedures for both miniscale (also known as small scale) and microscale users. This lab manual gives students all the necessary background to enter the laboratory with the knowledge to perform the experiments with confidence. For the microscale labs, experiments were chosen to provide tangible quantities of material, which can then be analyzed. Chapters 1-2 introduce students to the equipment, record keeping, and safety of the laboratory. Chapters 3-6, and 8 are designed to introduce students to laboratory techniques needed to perform all experiments. In Chapters 7 and 9 through 20, students are required to use the techniques to synthesize compounds and analyze their properties. In Chapter 21, students are introduced to multi-step syntheses of organic compounds, a practice well known in chemical industry. In Chapter 23, students are asked to solve structures of unknown compounds. The new chapter 24 introduces a meaningful experiment into the textbook that reflects the increasing emphasis on bioorganic chemistry in the sophomore-level organic lecture course. This experiment not only gives students the opportunity to accomplish a mechanistically interesting and synthetically important coupling of two a-amino acids to produce a dipeptide but also provides valuable experience regarding the role of protecting groups in effecting synthetic transformations with multiple functionalized molecules.

Jack Gilbert joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin in 1965 and moved to Santa Clara University in 2007, where he is Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry. He received the Advisory Council Teaching Excellence Award at UT the 2002-2003 academic year, as well as many other recognitions in teaching. While at UT, he co-authored several editions of the first laboratory textbook in organic chemistry that emphasized reactions mechanisms, as well as laboratory techniques, including spectroscopy. He continues to update the textbook, now with the able assistance of Steve Martin.

Stephen Martin received his B. S. degree in chemistry from the University of New Mexico in 1968 and his Ph.D. degree from Princeton University in 1972. After postdoctoral years at the University of Munich and MIT, he joined the faculty at The University of Texas at Austin in 1974, where he currently holds the M. June and J. Virgil Waggoner Regents Chair in Chemistry. His research interests lie broadly in organic and bioorganic chemistry. In the former area, his endeavors involve developing and applying new methods and strategies to the syntheses of biologically active natural and non-natural products, especially those containing nitrogen and oxygen heterocyclic subunits. In the biological arena, he is studying fundamental aspects of molecular recognition in biological systems with a particular focus on how making specific structural changes in a ligand, particularly with respect to preorganization and nonpolar surface area, affect energetics and dynamics in protein-ligand interactions. He has received a number of awards including a NIH Career Development Award, an American Cyanamid Academic Award, an Alexander von Humboldt Award, an Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, a Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science Award, a Wyeth Research Award, and the International Society of Heterocyclic Chemistry Senior Award. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has served as a consultant for a number of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. He is the regional editor of "Tetrahedron for the Americas." He has delivered numerous invited lectures at national and international meetings, academic institutions, and industrial companies, and has published over 300 scientific papers in primary journals together with several reviews and articles in books. He is also co-author of "Experimental Organic Chemistry: A Miniscale and Microscale Approach."