October 24 2019 Science Seminar
Speakers: Tyler Wernli, Jordan Cheng, Priscilla Ramirez and Bruce Hathaway
Title: The Development of Sulfonamide Derivatives and Essential Oil Extraction Research over Three Generations of Organic Chemistry Students
Abstract: Sulfanilamide was one of the first synthetic antimicrobial drugs developed. We couldn’t reproduce previously published work on preparation of substituted analogs. We developed some new procedures, and used other published procedures with some success. When tested in the future, we hope some of these new derivatives will have improved antimicrobial activity.
The extractions of the essential oils from cloves, star anise, cinnamon, and caraway seeds were performed with an unmodified household espresso machine and with an unmodified single-serve coffee maker. The yields and compositions of the oils using single and multiple extractions of each spice were compared with the oils obtained by a standard steam distillation technique. This research was developed into a series of organic chemistry experiments, which are being used in our Organic Chemistry laboratory courses.
