Studies Toward Provenance Determination For Indigo Dyes, Erin Kibby

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

Species of indigo-producing plants have been used to color textiles for thousands of years all over the globe. Natural indigo-producing species have historically been harvested in regions of Asia, North Africa, and North and South America. This study is an exploration of methods that can be used to determine the provenance (origin) of the indigo dye in a textile through the extraction and isolation of indigoids, flavonoids, and other compounds from the natural dyestuff. There is no accepted method of extracting flavonoids from indigo-dyed textiles specifically, and there is little investigation of the regionally different species. If a method is …

Antibacterial Activity, Structure-Activity Relationships, And Scale-Up Reaction Of 1,3,4-Oxadiazoles, Olivia Marie Smith

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

Oxadiazoles are compounds in the field of organic chemistry that have been gathering interest in the medicinal chemistry and microbiology communities for their biological properties, which range from anti-inflammatory agents, to chemotherapy drugs, to antibiotics. The synthesis of oxadiazoles can be difficult due to the expensive and complex nature of the techniques used as well as the volatile reagents and elevated temperatures that are often required in organic synthesis. The Grote lab has recently developed a new method for the synthesis of 1,3,4-oxadiazoles under mild conditions. The goals of this thesis were thus twofold: to develop a viable scale-up procedure …