The challenge of sourcing product of industrial importance from natural source has been a very serious issue due to the limited supply of such materials, however organic synthesis has been developed as technique that can carry out mass production of materials that are short in supply. Though it is a very tedious process that needs careful planning and application of known organic reactions, chemists cannot do without it. Organic synthesis is all about the transformation of simple starting materials into more complex and useful organic compounds via simple organic reactions.
The courses will expose students to the fundamentals of organic reactions that are very important in the building up of chemical compounds of domestic and industrial importance. Discussions will include reduction methods, metal reductions, oxidation methods: The stereochemistry of chemical compounds would also be taught in addition to treatment of cyclic compounds, allenes and spiranes; optical activity of diphenyl and conformational analysis with emphasis on stabilities of isomers, rates and course of reaction in acyclic, cyclic and fused ring systems- Lecturer : Eugene Ayuk