I'm teaching an organic lab right now (my first time teaching this course), and we're supposed to do a Diels-Alder reaction in a few weeks. It's a reaction between cyclopentadiene and maleic anhydride, and the students are supposed to "crack" dicyclopentadiene to cyclopentadiene using a distillation with mineral oil, and then react cyclopentadiene with maleic anhydride in ethyl acetate (which is a very exothermic reaction). Long story short, the whole thing sounds like an accident waiting to happen. 

I know there has got to be a safer (and maybe even greener!) Diels-Alder reaction out there for organic lab students, but I don't know exactly where to look and thought maybe it would be a good question for all of you! I don't have a long time to search and test things, so if someone has a Diels-Alder procedure you use at your university that works and is safer, I would love to hear about it!

Kendra Leahy Denlinger, Ph.D.

Adjunct Faculty

Department of Chemistry

Xavier University