00149 - Applied Organic Chemistry

Learning outcomes

At the end of this course, a general overview of the most significant applications of industrial organic chemistry, together with a basic knowledge of the socio-economic impact of chemistry will be provided to the student.

Course contents

• Petrochemistry and chemistry of the main commodities.
• Combustion and relative sanitary and environmental problems: greenhouse effect, acidic rains, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, photochemical smog.
• Solvents in synthetic and industrial chemistry.
• Innovative solvents for green applications: ionic liquids, supercritical fluids, water as solvent of polyphasic reaction media, solvent-less conditions.
• Non conventional energy sources for organic transformations: microwaves, ultrasounds.
• Industrial organic chemistry: primary, secondary and tertiary building blocks. Main industrial processes for the manufacturing of organic building blocks.
• Introduction to "Green chemistry" concepts : metrics for the evaluation of the environmental impact of a chemical transformation.

Readings/Bibliography

Lecture notes will be available for download. No supplementary textbook will be needed.
Reference books are:
“Organic Building Blocks of the Chemical Industry”, H. Harry Szmant, J. Wiley & sons
"Industrial Organic Chemistry", Klaus Weissermel, Hans-Jurgen Arpe, J. Wiley & sons

Teaching methods

Lectures with multimedia support. Slides are available for download.

Assessment methods

The learning assessment consists of a 2 hour written examination. During the examination the student is allowed to use a calculator and the periodic table, but the use of books, notes or other electronic media is strictly forbidden. The written examination is composed of 10 questions and/or exercises pertaining to all topics of the course program. In particular: hydrocarbons combustion and combustion reaction, petroleum refining processes, main industrial organic chemistry transformations, electron-configuration counting of transition-metal complexes, structure and synthesis of the main families of organic pesticides, mechanism of action of main anti-oxidants and evaluation of the "green" metrics for an organic transformation reaction. A maximum of 3 points is given to each questions.

Teaching tools

Multimedia supported lectures.

Office hours

See the website of Claudio Trombini