These pages cover the lab book preparation aspects ahead of a lab session. You may wish to also review the 'Preparing for Labs' pages linked below which covers other aspects of the preparation required ahead of lab sessions.

There will be variation in your lab book reflecting different types of practicals that you will be carrying out. This page is based around preparing your lab book for a synthetic practical, but should provide a starting point around the preparation requirements for any practical. Below is a list of items typically included in a lab book entry during the preparation stage.

A title to easily recognise the work being carried out. For taught labs, this is usually the title provided in the lab script.

The date the work is being carried out in the lab. It may be nescessary to also include dates during a lab book entry if some steps were completed on a subsequent day.

Most laboratory work will be being based on a method from a particular source. For taught labs, this will be following the lab script. For projects, this is likely to be a reference to published literature procedures or the work of other researchers. It is useful to include a reference to the source the lab work is being based on, as it may be nescessary to review the original method.

Reaction schemes show the chemistry being undertaken. Schemes want to include the starting materials, reaction conditions and product(s). It's also helpful to include the molecular formula and formula weight for the product and use this to calculate the theoretical yield (see outcomes).

Information on reagent tables is provided in a separate page.

For taught practicals, the script contains a risk assessment for the practical. For project work, a risk assessment will be produced to accompany the lab book. In both cases, there is no need to be reproducing the risk assessment into the lab book. Instead, providing a brief summary of the key hazards involved in the procedure and key mitigations are prudent to include. For example:

• concentrated sulfuric acid: highly corrosive - wear gloves

• butyllithium: pyrophoric - handle only under direct supervision of a demonstrator

Thinking about expected outcomes from a reaction during the planning stage can be very helpful whilst undertaking the work. For instance calculating the theoretical yield is useful to give an idea about the amount of compound which might be expected. This helps to identify which steps might be proving problematic, at a point where steps could be taken to try and overcome these issues.

Many reactions will also involve the collection of characterisation data, such as IR or NMR spectroscopy or melting point range determination. Thinking about what would be expected to be observed during the data collection is helpful information to have to hand when recording data. For melting point range determination, knowing what the expected melting point range would be helps in choosing the temperatures to use during the data recording. Similarly knowing what peaks to look out for in an NMR or IR spectrum can help to check that data has been acquired correctly.

Some items that are typically useful to prepare in advance:

• Theoretical yield

• Literature melting point range and reference

• Functional groups present in starting materials and products and their expected IR band positions

• NMR predictions

Include a short summary of the steps to be carried out. This is particularly important when planning your own reactions rather than scripted practicals.

When encountering new techniques, you may need to provide yourself instructions for how to undertake this part of a procedure. This might include written instructions and diagrams for setups.