Honors organic chemistry lab II
In the second semester of this year, I was invited to the join the honors section of the Organic Chemistry Lab II course. With only 11 students in the class, the purpose of this chemistry lab was to not only learn organic chemistry techniques, but also to allow the students to gain more relevant lab experience by planning the experiments themselves and working together to collect data and solve problems. Unlike the regular lab, we focused on 1 or 2 projects over the course of the semester. For the first few weeks of the semester, we worked on a more complex experiment synthesizing a porphyrin compound. Then, for the rest of the semester, we worked on a larger project optimizing the conditions to synthesize cyclic carbonate from relatively inexpensive reactants. After splitting into groups, we planned weeks of experiments testing out different concentrations of catalyst and reaction time. We also learned how to use analytical equipment to measure the production of our desired compound. I learned a lot from this experience, not only how to plan and carry out chemical experiments, but also how to work in a group to organize data and find results. At the end of the year, we gave a presentation to our professors about our progress, which you can find below.
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