Author Description

For courses or labs in organic chemistry including those with a qualitative organic analysis component. This software offers an easy-to-use simulation of an organic chemistry lab and can be used for pre- or post-lab activities, to supplement wet labs, or to replace wet labs if time or resources are an issue. In the Virtual ChemLab, students are put into a virtual environment where they are free to make choices and decisions that they would confront in a wet lab and, in turn, experience the consequences. The program is available both in single-user and networked versions. Students can synthesize products; work up reaction mixtures and perform extractions; use nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), infra-red (IR) spectroscopy, and thin-layer chromotography (TLC) as analytical tools; purify products by distillation or recrystallization; study 17 named reactions; and perform qualitative analysis experiments on unknowns. Over one million outcomes are possible for the synthesis experiments, over 1400 digitized spectra are included, and over 300 unknowns (11 classes) are available experimental combinations are possible. Students record their observations in a lab notebook. There is a classroom management side of the network version that allows instructors to assign unknowns, review lab notebooks, and view students' automatically graded results. Note: Sample the student version only Contact Eliana Ortiz for adopters of the network version.