Guide for a cost-effective organization of experiments and synthetic representation of massive dataset.
Lecturer: R. Biesuz
Period: February-July
The practical organisation of an experiment should aim to extract the maximum chemical information. The
essential requirements of good laboratory practice make it increasingly necessary to reduce the use of
reagents/ solvents especially when they are expensive or challenging to dispose of or when the analysis
requires long machine times. Often, we just want to evaluate the effect of less impactful
reactives/synthetic pathways. Nevertheless, the objective evaluation of these effects is not always obvious.
Extracting information clearly can be done on the basis of simple rules based on the analysis of the
variables involved, their possible range of variation and observation of the responses obtained from a well-
defined grid of ad hoc constructed experiments. The most diverse responses, yield, purity … and any other
descriptor of interest can be analysed. Still, the answer could also be an IR/UV spectrum, a CD or a

chromatographic run. In these cases, data visualization techniques can be used to reduce the information
underlying these signals into a few descriptors.
An overview of these techniques will be given, aimed at simplifying the work in the laboratory, whether it is
the synthesis of a new molecule, the development of an innovative material or the analysis of a complex
sample. For this reason, the lectures will be reduced to a minimum and exercises based on real cases will be
proposed to familiarize yourself with tools for optimization of experiments and visualization of data.
Final exam: presentation and discussion of a recent research paper concerning the issues of the
course, or presentation of a chemical experiment where the techniques described in the course
are employed.