THE TEACHING OF ELECTRO-ORGANIC CHEMISTRY* C. J. BROCKMAN, UNIVERSITY OP GEORGIA, ATHENS,GEORGIA
Electro-organic chemistry seems to be a highly specialized combination of two major branches of chemistry, namely, electrochemistry and organic chemistry. It seems to be the middle ground where these two sciences fuse together. This border temtory constitutes a field of chemistry in which one encounters the most complicated difficulties of electrolysis and of organic chemistry. These may account to some extent for the lack of interest shown by universities in this country in teaching electro-organic chemistry. But, on the other hand, the field has so few industrial applications, and it appears at the first glance to be so highly specialized, that it is not attractive to many in the science. Electro-organic chemistry, from the standpoint of synthetic reactions, deals with all of the gradations in oxidation and reduction reactions which are available at electrode interfaces, from the weakest to the strongest, and then deals with the separation and identification of many simultaneously occumng organic compounds in the resulting solutions. This, at times, is a rather imposing task. However, experimental difficulties seldom can deter or hinder an interested and enthusiastic investigator. So far as I have been able to determine, there is no undergraduate course set apart as a unit in which electrq-organic chemistry is considered as the sole subject matter of the course. It is, however, considered in practically every course in theoretical electrochemis'try which is given in the country. There are some exceptions, which to the writer have been astonishing. I t is the author's opinion that a study of the electrolysis of organic compounds is as justly a part of the fundamentals of electrochemistry, as is the study of the formation of chlorate or persulfate. In the laboratory procedures of electrochemistry courses, electro-organic chemistry is considered up to about 10 per cent of the content of the courses in some institutions. There are certain fundamental preparations, which are made as examples of the electrode reactions of oxidation, of reduction, of substitution, and the use of catalysts or carriers. These are the oxidation of ethyl and methyl alcohols, the preparation of iodoform from ethyl alcohol, and from acetone, the reduction of nitrobenzene to aniline, and the oxidation of anthracene to anthraqninone. I might add that these are the formal courses in electrochemistry in which these preparations are made, and so far as I have been able to determine about 10 institutions in this country are giving such instruction.
* Presented before the Fifty-fifth General Meeting of the American Electrochemical Society, held at Toronto. Canada, May 27, 28, and 29, 1929. 66
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Besides the above formal courses, mention is made in many institutions, in the general courses of organic and physical chemistry, of the applications of electro-organic chemistry, without actual laboratory manipulations to accompany the theoretical outline. These courses are purely informational in regard to electro-organic chemistry. When i t comes to graduate work, the field is even more limited. Only a few universities have graduate students interested in electro-organic chemistry, but in these institutions the work is of fundamental value, and is finally published in the journal literature, so that the record is permanent. Possibly five institutions have graduate students doing work a t one time, and the list of such institutions changes as the desires of the students vary from year to year. There is only one university which has done consistent work, and has published its results with any degree of regularity; during the past nine years, and all of these papers have appeared in the A. E. S. Transactions. Here and there a t more or less sporadic intervals is a paper published in the journals of this country. Therefore formal interest in electro-organic chemistry is exceedingly slight in the United States and Canada. So far as South America is concerned, I could discover no activity. The universities of the Scandinavian countries give a slight consideration to electro-organic syntheses in their courses on electrochemistry, with some laboratory preparations. I n Italy little is done, sometimes only one or two preparations being made in the laboratory. In Japan a short course in electro-organic chemis-is to begin in April of this year, a t one of their rapidly developing Japanese institutions. I could get no information from Russia. In Belgium and France, and in the Netherlands, the work is more or less iormal, and is mostly for graduate students, so is subsequently puhlished. However, the greatest bulk of published work appears in Germany and in Switzerland, and mostly from one institution in each country. This work is fundamental in the study of electro-organic oxidation, and is prosecuted in the laboratories of the students aspiring to the "Dr. Ing." or the "Ph.D." degrees. The results of these investigations are usually published in the Zeitschrift fur Elektrochemie, the official organ of our sister society, the BunsenGesellschaft, or in the Helvetia Chimica Acta, the official organ of the Swiss Chemical Society. Some papers from Switzerland have been printed in the A. E. S. Transactions from time to time. The reasons for this seemingly general disinterestedness in electroorganic chemistry by most chemists may be rather varied. One of my correspondents in the Netherlands suggests that for the most part i t may be due to "the fact that electrochemistsare generally poor organic chemists, and vice versa." An electrochemistin Belgium suggests that there will not
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be a serious application of electro-organic chemistry in industry until new methods, which are a t present unknown, are brought to light. There is something in these two statements which demands serious consideration by those who are interested in electro-organic chemistry. In the opinion of the writer there apparently is no valid reason for the general neglect of this phase of chemistry on the part of educational institutions, which are primarily interested in the teaching of organic chemistry or of electrochemistry. A valuable tool for the synthetic organic chemist has been almost studiously neglected, from the pedagogic standpoint a t least. But since the literature is now generally available, the author looks forward to great progress in the next decade.
