Objectives: To conduct a literature search on Penicillin

Experiment 2 in this course is based on the conversion of a penicillin derivative to a cephalosporin, and its purification using a technique known as Flash Chromatography. You should in this technique try to find out how to search the litarature for information about these compounds, their preparation and purification, their chemistry and their uses.

Planning the Experiment

Overall, you are expected to spend about 1 week on this technique, equivalent to 4-6 hours of "lab" time. You will find however, that access to some of the databases might be difficult during the afternoon, when demand hits a peak. Most of the sources of information will display on a Macintosh computer, but some (noteably the Cambridge crystallographic search) are best done using a Silicon Graphics.

You will be expected to "capture" the results of some searches either in a Word Processor (Claris Works), or in the form of disk based computer files, which might need to be transferred to another computer for further processing. The "write-up" should be critical, and should contain selected examples of your search results. It will be assessed on this basis. You should NOT simply submit an un-edited all-inclusive list of all that you found.