At the end of this activity, students should be able to: – use information from chemical tests to determine the structure of an organic compound – describe electromagnetic radiation in terms of wavelength, frequency, energy of photons and wavenumber – explain the general concept of spectroscopy – define the infra–red region used in spectroscopy – explain why organic compounds absorb infra–red radiation – state the relationship between the frequency of bond vibration and the frequency of absorbed radiation – discuss the factors affecting the frequency of bond vibration and the modes of bond vibration – describe recording of an infra–red spectrum, construction of the spectrometer and sample handling.
