This lesson is an extremely useful exercise for the structure elucidation of newly synthesized organic molecules. The technique involved is elemental detection, determination of functional groups, number of such functional groups, determination of molecular formula, preparation of derivatives and determining their melting and boiling points. All these steps are to be followed in the same sequence, as one leads to another.

The ultimate portion of the lesson deals with the procedure for separating a mixture of organic compounds (containing mono functional groups) into its constituents in pure form, so that the above procedure can be carried out effectively.