A Guide To Green Chemistry Experiments for Undergraduate Organic Chemistry Labs

Beyond Benign, My Green Lab, and MilliporeSigma have teamed up to develop a comprehensive teaching guide for undergraduate labs featuring Green Chemistry alternatives to traditional organic chemistry experiments and Green Chemistry lab practices*.

The purpose of this guide is to provide examples of green chemistry experiments that may serve as substitutions for classic undergraduate organic chemistry laboratory experiments. Discussions pertaining to the measurable benefits resulting from implementing greener alternative organic chemistry labs are provided, which include waste reduction, economic benefits, and hazard reduction.

For each experiment, a detailed experimental protocol is provided, along with an explanation as to why the substitution is considered to be more sustainable, and a TA guide complete with example lab questions. It provides multiple pathways for adopting greener labs and points faculty members to options that can be tailored to suit the needs of their own department, and their own courses. The guide also provides an assessment of some qualitative benefits of green chemistry implementation, including energy efficiency, use of renewable resources, and use of safer solvents.

While each experiment may stand on its own, they were designed to be highly modular to allow for facile adoption into existing curricula. We encourage you to use this guide as a starting point, and build upon this framework to suit the needs and unique format of your teaching laboratory.

Academic Contributors:
Professor Irvin J. Levy, Gordon College
Dr. Loyd Bastin, Widener University
Dr. Andy Dicks, University of Toronto
Dr. Akash Mehta, South Dakota State University
Dr. Ryan Trovitch, Arizona State University
Dr. Jane Wissinger, University of Minnesota

Reviewers:
Chris Lavoie, Dalhousie University
Alex Waked, University of Toronto

*An updated version of this Guide to Green Chemistry Experiments for Undergraduate Organic Chemistry Labs is currently in the process of being uploaded to the GCTLC platform. This updated version will contain some new experiments. For now, this (2018) version of this Guide is available in this curated collection.