Introduction to Structure Determination in Organic Chemistry

This site is designed to introduce you to the basic spectroscopic techniques which are used for the determination of the structure (constitution and stereochemistry) of organic compounds. It should be used in combination with the problem solving workshops in the tutorials.

Work through each section in turn using the menu above and self assess your progress using the problems in each section. When you are confident in your understanding of the use of each technique, work through the problems in the Combined section which show how the techniques are combined in real life structure determination problems.

Skills

After working through the material and self-assessment problems on this site, you should be able to:

• explain how modern spectroscopic methods work and
• use a variety of complementary spectroscopic techniques to determine the structure of an unknown organic compound.

You will also develop the following attributes:

• generic scientific skills including using evidence to solve problems and
• an appreciation of the spectroscopic techniques used to identify organic and pharmaceutical compounds.