CHEM 212 Santa Barbara City College Synthesis of Aspirin Analysis
TASK: Synthesis of a chemical in the environment
Sooooooo, the assignment is all about chemicals in the environment. Turns out, the main component of the “alarm” pheromone is isoamyl acetate, which is banana oil! It’s an ester that can easily be synthesized from vinegar (acetic acid) and isoamyl alcohol with a wee bit of acid. I want you all to think about an organic chemical in the environment that might be of interest to you, and propose a plausible synthesis for this molecule from either benzene, or alcohols containing no more than 4 carbons! This should be fun! It will be hard, but have fun with it and really think about what is interesting to you. If you find yourself looking into flowers, mushrooms, or other plants or animals etc. and maybe their pleasant odor or even their toxicity and you stumble upon crazy extravagant structures that are beyond the scope of the class, or our knowledge, run it by me and maybe I can give you a starting material that would be suitable to synthesize the final product from. Note there are plenty of organic molecules in the…world haha, so think about what you’re interested in and start from there.
