Instrumental analysis of organic compounds

Key Knowledge

• • Applications of mass spectrometry (excluding features of instrumentation and operation) and interpretation of qualitative and quantitative data, including identification of molecular ion peak, determination of molecular mass and identification of simple fragments

  • Identification of bond types by qualitative infrared spectroscopy (IR) data analysis using characteristic absorption bands

  • Structural determination of organic compounds by low resolution carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance (13C-NMR) spectral analysis, using chemical shift values to deduce the number and nature of different carbon environments

  • Structural determination of organic compounds by low and high resolution proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR) spectral analysis, using chemical shift values, integration curves (where the height is proportional to the area underneath a peak) and peak splitting patterns (excluding coupling constants), and application of the n+1 rule (where n is the number of neighbouring protons) to deduce the number and nature of different proton environments

  • The principles of chromatography, including high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and the use of retention times and the construction of a calibration curve to determine the concentration of an organic compound in a solution (excluding features of instrumentation and operation)

  • Deduction of the structures of simple organic compounds using a combination of mass spectrometry (MS), infrared spectroscopy (IR), proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR) and carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance (13C-NMR) (limited to data analysis)

  • The roles and applications of laboratory and instrumental analysis, with reference to product purity and the identification of organic compounds or functional groups in isolation or within a mixture