For some time we have been developing new green, microscale experiments for the introductory organic chemistry laboratory. We have also been modifying published experiments to make them more environmentally friendly. Currently, we are especially interested in experiments that will not only be of interest for our laboratories, but also for those of at the Kigali Institute of Science & Technology (KIST) in Rwanda. We will present two such literature experiments that we have modified somewhat. The first experiment uses household chemicals and involves extraction of acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) from aspirin tablets, conversion of ASA to salicylic acid (SA), and conversion of SA to ethyl salicylate (ES) (Solomon, S. et al., J. Chem. Educ. 1996 , 73, 173-175). The second experiment involves the synthesis of 2-methylbutyl acetate, interpretation of its 1H and 13C NMR spectra and conformational analysis with the aid of molecular modeling using Spartan (Clausen, T. P. J. Chem. Educ.2011 , 88, 1007-1009). Rwandan chemists can access NMR data on the Hendrix College server and process it with JEOL Delta software at KIST.

Adventures in green organic chemistry with aspirin and other esters for the Kigali Institute of Technology (Rwanda) and Hendrix College

245th National Meeting (2013)

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