A mixed-aldol condensation reaction with unknown aldehydes and ketones: Employing modern methods to improve the learning process for second-year undergraduate organic chemistry students

摘要

Expanding the use of modern characterization methods and discovery-based experiments is a goal for many second-year undergraduate introductory organic chemistry laboratory instructors. Large enrollments for this course limit the number and range of experiments that can be performed due to constraints on instruments and resources. The experiment described employs a discovery-based approach to enhance a previously published mixed-aldol condensation experiment by incorporating modern structure analysis methods.