Student ID: 20413435
Qualification: Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma in
Applied Science
Unit number and title Unit 14: Applications of Organic Chemistry
Learning aim Unit 14D: Investigate organic chemistry reactions in order
to gain skills in preparative organic chemistry.
Making designer chemicals
Vocation: I am a junior technician working for Reckitt Benckiser and I have recently
been transferred to their Boots division in Nottingham.
The products made by this company include ‘Nurofen’, ‘Strepsils’ and ‘Clearasil’. I
am working in drug development and my job is to carry out reactions that have been
designed by the senior research chemists to try to synthesise new pharmaceutical
products. It takes years of trying out and refining reactions to eventually make a
compound that it is believed will have therapeutic properties. I will provide accurate
laboratory reports of my practical work and assess the importance of the reaction
conditions that I have used. I will include an evaluation of the results that I obtained
and the importance of the reaction conditions chosen.
This will enable the senior research chemist to decide how to improve the reactions to
obtain the intended chemicals.
Introduction: This laboratory report aims to Explain the chemical reactions carried
out in terms of the functional groups and reaction conditions involved.
Three practicals will be carried out that includes a method, results, reaction
mechanisms, balanced equations, yield and purity, reagents, reaction conditions and
reaction times and an evaluation of the results obtained.
Synthesis of an haloalkane
The haloalkanes, also known as alkyl halides, are a group of chemical compounds
composed of an alkane with one or more hydrogens replaced by a halogen atom
(fluorine, chlorine, bromine, or iodine)
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, There are three different kinds of halogenoalkanes:
Primary- In a primary (1°) halogenoalkane, the carbon which carries the halogen
atom is only attached to one other alkyl group. Some examples of primary
halogenoalkanes include:
Secondary- In a secondary (2°) halogenoalkane, the carbon with the halogen attached
is joined directly to two other alkyl groups, which may be the same or different.
Examples:
Tertiary- In a tertiary (3°) halogenoalkane, the carbon atom holding the halogen is
attached directly to three alkyl groups, which may be any combination of same or
different.
Examples:
Apparatus:
-Test tubes
-Beaker (250 cm3)
-Test tube rack
-pH strips
-Kettle
-Conical flask (250 ml)
-Ethanol
-Sodium hydroxide
-Nitric acid
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