Course and Subject Handbook

This subject builds on and applies fundamental chemical knowledge from CH1001 and CH1002 to develop an understanding of organic chemistry. Organic chemistry is the study of compounds based on carbon. These compounds can exist as simple hydrocarbons or combined with other elements such as nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus or halogens. These types of compounds are extremely important as they are produced by living organisms or manufactured synthetically. The range of organic chemistry is our lives is enormous and includes pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, paints, food, explosives and petrochemicals and this will be important for our future prosperity.

In this subject you will learn the basic principles of organic chemistry including mechanism and reactivate intermediates as well as relevant spectroscopic methods that chemists use for determining the structure of the compounds, which may have been isolated from natural sources or prepared synthetically in the laboratory. The main themes in this subject will include: (i) Purification and spectroscopy in organic chemistry: separation & structure elucidation using spectroscopy (ii) Basic principles of organic chemistry: concepts, mechanisms and reactions: (iii) Pharmaceutical application of organic chemistry: drugs, leads and structure-activity relationships. 

The practical component of the course will be geared towards providing the student with synthetic skills and purification techniques that will allow them to successfully complete model chemical reactions.