Resumen de Chiral Compounds and Green Chemistry in Undergraduate Organic Laboratories: Reduction of a Ketone by Sodium Borohydride and Baker's Yeast
Nicola L. B. Pohl, Allen Clague, Kimberly Schwarz
We describe an integrated set of experiments for the undergraduate organic laboratory that allows students to compare and contrast biological and chemical means of introducing chirality into a molecule. The racemic reduction of ethyl acetoacetate with sodium borohydride and the same reduction in the presence of a tartaric acid ligand are described, and a capillary gas chromatography column packed with a chiral material for product analysis is introduced. The results of these two hydride reactions are compared with the results of a common undergraduate experiment, the baker's yeast reduction of ethyl acetoacetate.
