Natural product isolation and analysis provide an opportunity to present a variety of experimental techniques to undergraduate students in introductory organic chemistry. Eugenol, anethole, and carvone were extracted from six common spices using steam-distillation and diethyl ether as the extraction solvent. Students assessed the purity of their spice extract and identified its components via TLC, reverse-phase HPLC, and GC−MS analyses. In addition, students reviewed molecular characteristics and interactions while discovering the similarities and differences among the six spice extracts.
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