Vogel's Practical Organic Chemistry (5th edition)
One of the best books there is out there teaching practical organic
chemistry is the one written by Arthur I. Vogel. The author is now
deceased, but his teachings continues to live on - there has even been
published a fifth edition of his masterpiece A Textbook of Practical
Organic Chemistry after his death, containing many new preparations and
procedures with techniques discovered in the last decades, which has
been added to the book by other editors. However, the third edition of
his book (first published in 1956) is actually of much better use to the
hobby chemist, as it does not make use of any hideously expensive
glassware/apparatus or exotic reagents or catalysts. Back in those days,
an organic chemist was supposed to make many of his precursors himself,
and to purify solvents and reagents in the lab before using them, as
they were not available from chemical supply houses in 99.99% purity.
There are even sections on glass-blowing in the book. The organic
chemists of that day hadn't access to million-dollar NMR machines or
GC/MS analytical equipment, therefore the preparations in this book
don't require the use of such unavailable machines to identify products,
only simple melting points to be taken, or the identification of
certain odors, colors or crystal shapes.
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