The Oxidation of Alkylbenzenes: Using Data Pooling in the Organic Laboratory to Illustrate Research in Organic Chemistry

• James C. AdrianJr. ^[1] ; Leslie A. Hull ^[1]
  1. [1] Union College

     Union College

     City of Schenectady, Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: Journal of chemical education, ISSN 0021-9584, Vol. 78, Nº 4, 2001, pág. 529
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • In the organic laboratory class, students working in groups of two are assigned the task of oxidizing various substituted alkylbenzenes with potassium permanganate in basic solution. By pooling the results from all groups it is possible to illustrate for the laboratory section how a research project in chemistry can be used to answer simple questions. What happens when your individual alkylbenzene is oxidized? The data pooling allows the students to answer the following questions: Does the result of the reaction depend on the presence of other substituents on the ring? Does the result of the reaction depend on the position of the substituent? Does the result of the reaction depend on the alkyl chain length? In this way the students get a sense of how the results reported in textbooks are derived from the literature.