This resource was created by Lisa Nichols (chemistry faculty at Butte Community College in Northern California) as a result of an academic sabbatical leave in the Fall-2015 to Spring 2016 term. The target audience are undergraduate students in organic chemistry. In this resource you will find theory and procedures on the main organic lab techniques (chromatography, crystallization, extraction, distillation) as well as general concepts on how to set up and heat apparatuses (see the Table of Contents tab for a more complete listing of topics). All procedures are accompanied by step-by-step pictures, and graphics are heavily utilized throughout the resource.
CHEM 216 builds on the experimental approach started in CHEM 211. Students participate in planning exactly what they are going to do in the laboratory by being given general goals and directions that have to be adapted to fit the specific project they will be working on. They use microscale equipment, which requires them to develop manual dexterity and care in working in the laboratory. They also evaluate the results of their experiments by checking for identity and purity using various chromatographic and spectroscopic methods.
