Organic Chem Drugs and Med Experiments

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around designing experiments for a senior year chemistry class, specifically focusing on organic chemistry, drugs, and medicinal applications. Participants share ideas and considerations for experiments that are both advanced and suitable for a high school level.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Homework-related
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • One participant suggests extracting caffeine from coffee as a potential experiment but expresses confusion about the underlying chemistry.
  • Another participant proposes purifying the active ingredient of catnip as an interesting alternative, noting that it shares techniques with caffeine extraction.
  • Discussion on the dissolution of pills highlights its significance in medication absorption, with one participant arguing that this aspect is crucial and involves interesting chemistry.
  • Concerns are raised about the ability to explain the chemistry of pill dissolution at a high school level, with some participants suggesting that learning new concepts is possible.
  • A participant mentions that the discussed experiments may not meet the requirements for their class, as they lack relationships or investigative elements.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express differing views on the practicality and educational value of the proposed experiments. There is no consensus on which experiments would be suitable or meet the class requirements.

Contextual Notes

Some limitations include the potential complexity of explaining certain chemical processes at a high school level and the requirement for experiments to involve relationships or investigative elements.

Epsillon
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Hi,

I am supposed to design 2 experiments for my senior year Chem class.

Right now I cannot think of anything that is interesting, relatively advanced but at the same time at a high school level (its only a design lab so I can include advanced equipments).

Topics that interest me the most:
Organic Chem
Drugs and Med


Experiments I have thought off.

Extracting caffeine from coffee:
I found information online but I could not understand the chemistry behind it.

Doing experiment with pills dissolving:
Thought about it a bit not a very practical or useful experiment


Now I am stuck and need ideas that I can expand on.

Thanks in advance.
 
Chemistry news on Phys.org


If you are interested in purifying cool organic substances from somewhat ordinary material, there is a great protocol online for purifying the active ingredient of catnip. The protocol is a very entertaining read that also tries to explain the importance of each step (and could even help you understand the extraction of caffeine since it uses some of the same techniques).

http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Kitty-Crack:--ultra-potent-catnip-extract/
 


Epsillon said:
Doing experiment with pills dissolving:
Thought about it a bit not a very practical or useful experiment

Quite the opposite, speed at which pills dissolve is one of the most important factors responsible for speed at which medication is adsorbed. Think about all these 'retartded' drugs that work for 12 hours, or all these drugs that dissolve not in stomach but in intestines. There is very interesting and clever chemistry behind these ideas.
 


Ya but I don't think I could explain the chemistry at a high school level.
 


At least some for sure. Besides, you don't HAVE to limit yourself to the chemistry you know, you can always learn something new.
 


Ya I talked to my teacher and apparently all the experiments talked about here are not really the type of experiments we need since there are no relationships or something being figured out.
 

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