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Microwave-Assisted Heterocyclic Chemistry
The featured molecules for this month come from the Green Chemistry article, "Microwave-Assisted Heterocyclic Chemistry for the Undergraduate Organic Laboratory" by Musiol, Tyman-Szram, and Polanski. The authors give conditions and yields for the solid-phase synthesis of a number of heterocyclic compounds in a microwave oven. Although the jury is still out on the detailed mechanism behind microwave acceleration of reaction rates, there is a great deal of interest in such reactions in the chemical community.
Students encountering heterocyclic species for the first time might find it useful to consider the effect of addition of a heteroatom on the electron distribution in the molecule. The Chime plug-in enables the user to construct a qualitative electrostatic potential map, allowing students to visualize this map in three-dimensions. Details of this process are available.
Viewing Requirements
In addition to the static images, two fully manipulable versions
(Jmol, MDLChime)
of these molecules appear below.
 Download
Chime (registration required)
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