Chemistry: Graduate Lecture Series: (AO8) Focus (I): Organic Synthesis in Water (2L)

ADVANCED ORGANIC CHEMISTRY (AO)

Water is the solvent used by nature for biological chemistry. Considering the enormous variety of biological pathways and the complicated molecular structures and materials, including precise arrangements of multitudes of asymmetric centers, which are found in biological systems, it is remarkable that up until recently organic synthesis has mainly shunned water. In recent years there has been a resurgence in the use of water as a solvent in a wide variety of reaction types.

The aim of these two lectures will be to explore these reactions where water has been applied as a solvent. The initial focus will be the investigation of the kinetics of these reactions where interesting rate effects have been observed. The focus will then move onto a range of reaction types such as the Diels-Alder [4+2] and Huisgen [3+2] cycloaddition reactions, Claisen rearrangement, epoxide ring opening, olefin metathesis and cyclopropanation reactions. The final part of this lecture series will focus on the development and application of bioorthogonal reactions where the use of water as the solvent is crucial.

Postgraduates in the Department of Chemistry

Lecture

1 hour