20282 Organic Chemistry for Biology Students 1

Credits: 3 intermediate credits in Chemistry

Prerequisites: none

Required: General Chemistry2 or General Chemistry I

Recommended: One of the following: General Biology I, Introduction to Life Sciences

The course is based on a translation of chapters 1-14 of Essential Organic Chemistry (2nd ed.), by P.Y. Bruice (Pearson Education, 2010). Materials include the ChemTV: Core Organic Chemistry CD-Rom consisting of animations, and computer software for the study of nuclear magnetic resonance.

The course acquaints students with the fundamentals of organic chemistry, emphasizing the relevance of organic chemistry to biological sciences (e.g., medicine, agriculture, nutrition, etc.) and earth sciences.

Topics: Introduction to organic chemistry; Hydrocarbons: alkanes, cycloalkanes, alkenes and alkynes; Isomers and stereochemistry; Delocalized electrons: resonance and conjugation; Aromaticity: reactions of benzene and substituted benzenes; Substitution and elimination reactions; Reactions of alcohols, amines, ethers and epoxides; Carbonyl compounds: reactions of carboxylic acids and derivatives, aldehydes and ketones, and reactions at the α-carbon; Structure determination by spectroscopic techniques: MS, UV-vis, IR, ¹H-NMR, ¹³C-NMR.

The course includes one mandatory laboratory session.

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1There is some overlap in the content of this and other courses. For details, see Overlapping Courses.

2or General Chemistry (20477 or 20487), which is no longer offered.