An Interdisciplinary Experiment within Chemistry: Natural Product Composition Analysis Using a Miniature Mass Spectrometer

Abstract

Interdisciplinary experiments within chemistry are very important for the improvements in the overall quality of the education received by students. In this work, we describe an interdisciplinary experiment that was successfully completed by undergraduate students. This training integrates multiple disciplines including natural product medicinal chemistry, organic synthesis, and instrumental analysis. The experiment involved the extraction of crude berberine hydrochloride (BBH) from Coptidis rhizoma, recrystallization for purification, and qualitative and quantitative analysis of purified BBH using the “Brick-L” miniature mass spectrometer (mini-MS). The use of mini-MS analysis is the highlight of this work. Mini-MS offers an unprecedented opportunity to incorporate MS analysis into regular undergraduate teaching due to its small size, low power consumption, and portability. The modular design of the mini-MS instrument used in this work allows instructors to disassemble the instrument on-site in the laboratory to show and introduce the actual structure and components inside the instrument to students. Students not only gain hands-on experience with technology but also have the opportunity to see some of the “inner workings” rather than simply treating the mass spectrometer as “a black box”. This greatly helped students understand the construction and analysis principles of MS and motivated students to learn about scientific instruments. This comprehensive experiment can help undergraduate students to improve their overall ability and get in touch with the frontiers of analytical chemistry. This teaching practice can also provide a viable case for comprehensive chemistry experiments in other related disciplines.

Atmospheric solids analysis probe mass spectrometry: An easy bolt‐on for the synthetic undergraduate teaching laboratory

“…The growing interest in smaller scale mass spectrometers has led to the development of a number of systems, by both commercial and academic laboratories 12 . Although recently published work using the Brick‐L miniature mass spectrometer by Zhang et al in an undergraduate experiment fulfils these criteria, 13,14 the low resolution and low fragmentation of typical data provided by this technique may not be suitable to provide the level of detail needed for many undergraduate synthetic experiments. Furthermore, the Brick‐L is not a commercially available mass spectrometer and thus not accessible to the majority of universities.…”