Our Department of Organic Chemistry is involved not only in the production of scientific publications, but also in the preparation of scripts and popular science texts for the journal Přírodovědci.
Scientific publications
Current and older publications can be found here.
Publications aimed at teaching
In 2020, the authors' team of Dr. Ales Machara and Prof. Jan Vesely published the Handbook of Laboratory Organic Chemistry, which is used by students of the Chemistry Section of the Faculty of Science during the Basic Organic Practicum courses. This collection, which was created for the students of natural science at Czech universities, has several parts. The text contains in the general part the principles of work safety and ethics of scientific activity, followed by a description of laboratory equipment, basic working techniques and procedures in chapters 3 to 5. This is followed by a brief description of the principles of the most common instrumental methods (chromatography, mass spectrometry), methods of characterisation of substances and determination of functional groups. The general part is completed by chapters describing the principles of keeping a laboratory diary and summary advice. Chapter 12 provides detailed work instructions for 27 problems from which to choose as appropriate for a given organic chemistry laboratory course.
The handbook is available for purchase in the Chemistry Section library.
Popular Science Articles
- September 2024 publication by Assoc. Radim Hrdina: On the origin of homochirality on Earth
- Prof. Kotora regularly publishes in the journal Přírodovědci in his regular column entitled Chemical Curiosities.
The latest article, entitled: Symmetrical Stable and Rare, gives information on compounds referred to as diamondoids.
In the penultimate issue (02/2024), he focuses on organic compounds referred to as halohydrins, which are formed by living organisms.
- In 2023, Dr. Ondrej Baszczynski wrote a popular science article for the journal Natural Scientists (Threat with Mold on the Surface), also Assoc. Stanislav Smrček published in this issue an article entitled Antibiotics - yes or no?. A word of introduction to this issue was written by prof. Veselý.
- In 2022, Dr. Martin Kamlar and Dr. Michal Urban wrote a popular science text on Asymmetric Organocatalysis with the subtitle: Organic Catalysts Revolutionized the Synthesis of Optically Pure Substances. The article was published on page 16 in the journal Natural Scientists of the Faculty of Science of Charles University.
- In 2017, Prof. Veselý wrote an article for the journal Přírodovědci entitled - Chemist's analysis of the forest (Forest is a rich source of raw materials, but requires a sensitive approach)