When you’re just starting out in the organic chemistry lab, every experiment involves a new and unfamiliar reagent. You’ll have a lot of questions. Should you buy it or should you make it in the lab? If you found a bottle in the lab, should you add it directly to your reaction, or should you purify it first? If you bought a new bottle, how should you store it? Is the reagent especially toxic, or likely to catch fire or explode? Once you’ve got a handle on these important questions, you’ll want to weigh the reagent, and add it to your reaction. Easier said than done, in some instances.
You will also find that you’re running reactions in many different solvents, and that each one has unique properties. Each solvent behaves differently when it comes time to isolate your product, and using the wrong technique can lead to serious headaches during workup and purification. Check the list of workup tricks to find methods for:
Ever wonder: which oxidant should I use? Do you want to make LDA or the Jones reagent, or need to titrate n-BuLi? Are you curious about molecular sieves, or exotic solvents?
Aaaand, visit Rookie Mistakes: Reagents for a different perspective on the subject.
Chemists use solvents for reactions, column chromatography, and crystallization. For successful experimentation, the properties of various solvents are important to understand. Furthermore, since much of the chemical waste we generate is derived from solvent, the environmental impact of common solvents is a growing concern.
You can find information on relative solvent polarity, solvent properties relevant to chromatography, and a “solvent selection guide” from GSK comparing the toxicity of different solvents.
An article expanding on the GSK solvent selection guide can be
found here
For a chart of suggested replacements for undesirable solvents (as used at Pfizer), see
this article.