Education

General Chemistry (Organic Chemistry) II (Bachelor 1st Year)

This course provides an introduction to Organic Chemistry, focusing on the fundamental relationship between molecular structure and reactivity. You will develop an understanding of the stability and behavior of reactive intermediates—such as radicals, carbocations, and carbanions—as well as central concepts like the HSAB principle and acid-base theories. The curriculum covers essential reaction mechanisms, including nucleophilic and electrophilic substitutions (both aliphatic and aromatic), additions to double bonds, eliminations, and redox processes. The primary goal is to master the logic behind chemical transformations to confidently predict and analyze the reactivity of various classes of substances.

protected page Course website (Lecture Slides and Exercises)

OC VIII: Transition Metal Catalysis: From Mechanisms to Applications (Master elective)

Detailed discussion of selected modern transition metal catalyzed reactions from a synthetic and mechanistic viewpoint.    

Understanding and critical evaluation of current research in transition metal catalysis. Design of mechanistic experiments to elucidate reaction mechanisms. Synthetic relevance of transition metal catalysis. Students will also learn about writing an original research proposal during a workshop.

protected page Course website (Lecture slides and exercises)

Inorganic and Organic Chemistry I (OACP1, Lab course)

Introduction into basic techniques used in the organic laboratory. Understanding organic reactions through experiments.

Part I: Basic operations such as the isolation, purification and characterization of organic compounds: distillation, extraction, chromatography, crystallization, IR (UV/1H-NMR)-spectroscopy for the identification of the constituion of organic compounds.

Part II: Organic reactions: preparative chemistry. From simple, one-step to multistep syntheses. Both classic and modern reactions will be performed.

protected page Course website (Lecture slides and exercises)