Safe Use of Carbon Monoxide in the Undergraduate Teaching Laboratory: Methoxycarbonylation of Iodocyclohexane

A catalytic photochemical methoxycarbonylation of iodocyclohexane was carried out as an undergraduate exercise as a part of a Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE). The main goal of the exercise was to train students, using carbon monoxide as an example, in the design of a process that requires the use of hazardous reagents. The main concept to convey to the students was that the procedure or the process must be designed with numerous safety redundancies to ensure that there was no single point of failure. It meant anticipating possible problems and implementing redundant safety measures and means to detect that a possible problem has occurred.