Topic 12Additional Topics

Chemical reactions rarely give pure products: almost invariably they give mixtures containing unwanted by-products that come from side reactions or decomposition, part of the reagents that did not react (starting material), or salts and impurities from the medium. Knowing and developing separation and purification methods is essential in the practice of Organic Chemistry, both in the laboratory and in an industrial plant.

The next challenge is to learn, even if only the basics, the spectroscopic methods used to identify and characterize the separated substances, in order to know for certain what has been synthesized or to analyse the components of an unknown sample.

Finally, it is very instructive to realize that Organic Chemistry (the Chemistry of Carbon) is present in almost everything around us and in our own bodies.