An overview of some natural products with two A-level science club natural products experiments
Issue 366 | Page 62 | Published Sep 2017
Description
Natural products are ubiquitous in nature but do not form a large proportion of the A-level syllabuses in the UK. In this article we briefly discuss a small selection of natural products, focusing on alcohols, aldehydes and ketones, and alkaloids. We then outline two natural product experiments that are suitable for A-level chemistry clubs or similar. Experiment 1 is the isolation and analysis of caffeine from tea, and Experiment 2 is the extraction and characterisation of a volatile oil, eugenol, from cloves. These experiments include a variety of laboratory techniques, including steam distillation, determination of melting point, thin-layer chromatography and column chromatography, infrared spectroscopy and ultraviolet spectrophotometry.
More from this issue
Through the development of clubs such as an engineering society and a space society, managed by sixth-form students themselves and structured to...
Mutations can cause genetic diseases and the vast majority of these have no effective treatment. They raise some difficult questions on the...
Reform of the Scottish science curriculum for Higher Chemistry gave students the opportunity to experiment with essential oils and fragrances....