Abstract
Natural products are ubiquitous in nature but do not form a large proportion of theA-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 andcolumn chromatography, infrared spectroscopy and ultraviolet spectrophotometry.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 62-72 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | The School Science Review |
| Volume | 99 |
| Issue number | 366 |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Sept 2017 |