Announcements (Please carefully because you will held fully responsible):

1. Quiz 2

The second quiz will be administered on Thursday, October 8, 2015 at 11:00 am covering the ligand and the catalyst synthesis and characterization. Bring a ruler, non-graphing calculator and blue or black pen with you. Please make sure that you arrive on time (you should be seated by 10:55 am!!!). Late arrivals (even if it is only one minute) will not be allowed to take the quiz, which will result in an automatic zero score for the quiz. If you do not place your name on the quiz to assume authorship, you will receive a zero score as well! You cannot add the name after time was called because this is considered cheating. It is also not allowed to start writing (including writing down your name on the quiz) until you are allowed to do so by the instructor. Failure to follow these rules will result in an immediate dismissal from the quiz resulting in a zero score.

2. Based on the observations made in the past quarters, many students have not been well prepared when they were entering the lab. As a result, many of them did not complete the projects in a timely fashion. In addition, many mistakes were made in performing basic techniques i.e., extraction (isolating the wrong layer), recrystallization (use of excessive amounts of solvent like earlier in the week or overzealous washing of the crystals after filtration), using excessive amounts of drying agent causing a loss of product, etc. Thus, it is imperative to review these techniques in detail before attending the lab in order to avoid these time-consuming mistakes. In many cases, it might be advisable to attend office hours as well to ask questions or pick up some more information.

3. In general, students will only be allowed to attend their own lab section. This means that you have to be better prepared when you come to the lab to get the work done in the allotted time, which is easily possible if you know what you understand what you are doing. If there are questions, you should ask them during office hours or on the course discussion board.

4. There is no data sharing allowed unless permitted by the instructor. Everybody has to acquire her/his own spectra and data i.e., melting point, optical rotation. Students who share data will be reported to the Dean of Students because this is considered cheating. To this end, the student's name has to be denoted on the FTIR spectrum and on the UV-Vis spectrum when the spectrum is acquired.

5. Make sure that you make progress on your formal report as well in terms of literature research and writing the parts that you completed already in the lab. The draft version of paper is due by October 9, 2015 at 4:30 pm. The draft version is worth 20 points, the final paper 60 points. For more information what the draft is supposed to contain see here. Late submission will receive less credit. The more of your work you submit in the draft, the more feedback you will get, which will beneficial for the final version. We will try to have the reports available by Monday, October 12, 2015. The final version of the paper will be due by October 23, 2015 at 4:30 pm.

6. Please note that the polarimeter will not be available on October 8, October 13 and October 14, 2015 because the instrument will be move to the first floor for a week (camphor experiment).

7. The question below are due in your prelab for October 6, 2015 or October 7, 2015 (=meeting 4).

ATTN: Answers to the below questions are due at the start of your lab period; these answers should be part of your pre-lab write-up.

1. Referring to the synthesis and characterization of the Jacobsen catalyst, answer the following questions.

a. The procedure recommends to crush the Mn(II) acetate prior to its addition to the mixture obtained in b. Rationalize this step.

b. Why is the mixture of the ligand and manganese(II) acetate in 95 % ethanol refluxed before the oxidant is introduced to the reaction mixture?

c. What is used as the oxidant in the reaction? How is it introduced into the reaction mixture?

d. Why is it important to properly reflux the reaction mixture? What would the student observe during the reflux?

e. Which observations will the student make during the reaction?

f. The reaction is monitored using TLC. What is used as mobile phase here? What would the student observe if the reaction was incomplete?

g. The drying agent appears dark brown after removing the organic layer. How should the student proceed?

h. After the drying agent was removed from the organic layer, the bulk of the ethyl acetate is removed. Then, high-boiling petroleum ether is added to the solution. Which purpose do these steps serve? Why is it important that the solvent is not removed completely afterwards?