9351620 Nelson This project will address a new approach to instruction in the large-enrollment service undergraduate Organic Chemistry Laboratory, characterized by new synthetic methodology based on the use of supported reagents and catalysts that could be used in the undergraduate organic laboratory, and more extensive use of GC and (FT)IR instrumentation commonly found in undergraduate organic labs. In the case of supported materials, syntheses would be carried out on or catalyzed by material adsorbed or bound ionically or covalently to various supports. The supports would be similar to silica-based or styrene-divinylbenzene HPLC bonded phases, and be used in set-ups commonly referred to as solid phase extraction (SPE) devices. There is a wide variety of these materials commercially available at this time. Equivalent materials can be prepared by the user if desired at a considerable cost saving. A second group of experiments would be designed as catalytic vapor phase reactions that could be carried out in a modified injection port of a gas chromatograph. An alternative set-up would involve a small reactor column placed either in the column oven of the G.C. or in an auxiliary oven and used in conjunction with multiport valves. The gas chromatograph would then be used to analyze, and possibly isolate, the reaction products. Experiments would emphasize principles rather than product isolation and characterization.
