Description
The goals and components of this exercise are as follows:
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Solve the structure of a true "unknown," i.e. when you have no information about reactivity
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Report data in ACS/thesis format so that you will have a reference for the future
At the beginning of the semester, you will be given spectra and data for an unknown organic compound. Your assignment is twofold. One part is to determine the structure of this unknown, including the relative configuration (i.e. not absolute configuration).
The other part of this assignment is not only to determine the structure of the unknown (drawn with ChemDraw® or equivalent (required)), but also to report all of the data given to you in the ACS journal format. Include in this report copies of the spectra we provided to you, and on each them write the assignments you made in order to determine the structure.
We will grade these reports very strictly. In other words, they should be publication quality, as Supporting Information and/or in your thesis!
Student Projects
Below are sample projects from two students who took this course.
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Student Project #1 (PDF) and Supporting Graphs (PDF)
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Student Project #2 (PDF) (Courtesy of Tim Heffron. Used with permission.)