Unknown Samples for Teaching Labs
John S. Harwood (harwood@hugh.chem.uic.edu)
Fri, 28 Feb 1997 18:58:21 -0800
Dear AMMRL'ers
I apologize for the delay in getting this reply out.
I want to thank all of you who reponded with useful informat-
ion about unknown samples for teaching. Several of you asked
for a summary, so here goes.
Terpenes of various sorts were the most common sugges-
tion, with citronellol (and derivatives) being mentioned sev-
eral times, along with menthol, camphor, jasmone, geraniol,
farnesol, santonin, and norbornenes. Other suggestions includ-
ed strychnine, chinchonidine (similar to quinine), pamoic acid,
nicotinic acid, butyric acid, and sugars (sucrose, maltose,
lactose) for working in D2O.
I did not give much detail about the labs I am teaching,
but it is a part of a graduate analytical class, and we only have
four three-hour sessions to teach a pair of students to run
the experiments (proton, carbon-13, DEPT and COSY) and to let
them obtain their own spectra of the unknown. We also are using
an AC-200 for the lab so we can't do HMQC/HMBC experiments (as
suggested by some), nor do we have time to do the carbon-det-
ected analogs.
Last year when we did this lab we erred (greatly) on the
side of having the unknowns be way too easy. We decided this
year to make the unknowns more difficult and see what the stud-
ents come up with, even if they can't solve the structure com-
pletely.
In response to the suggestions I went through the Aldrich
catalog and ordered ten samples, and I will try them out soon.
If anyone would like further specifics or would like to discuss
this further, please email me.
Again, thank you to all who responded.
John Harwood
harwood@hugh.chem.uic.edu