tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56852246049004392992024-03-20T09:39:03.102+00:00The Boiling Pointamonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-14398727857058593072011-05-19T20:40:00.000+01:002011-05-19T20:40:25.298+01:00I've moved....Hi everyone, I've started blogging over at http://www.science3point0.com/theboilingpoint/ so come and have a read. I can't see me updating this site too much anymore...amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-77169690559846954362011-04-24T20:16:00.000+01:002011-04-24T20:16:57.161+01:00British Summertime... in April?!<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">It would appear that the fabled English summer has come about 3 months early this year as I have largely spent the last 2 weeks or so in a reclining position catching as much sun on my pale British shoulders as is healthy. I’ve spent the last few months hunched over my bench in the lab hard at work but I’m off work this coming week along with the rest of the department celebrating the imminent Royal Wedding (or not as the case may be, the monarchy never really was my thing). Saying that, any excuse for a pint of ale in the sun is currently perfectly fine with me. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">The most interesting breakthrough in my chemistry recently was that I finally managed to crystallize one of my catalysts, something I’ve been trying to do since Christmas. I sent off the structure and the sample to the crystallographer and had an e-mail back about 2 weeks later (via my supervisor) saying that she had some odd results. It turns out I crystallised the wrong catalyst, which was frankly silly of me. Oh well, it was still pretty interesting nonetheless, and I now have a pretty picture for my thesis. I only got a slight telling off from my supervisor as well, so I can’t complain.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">I will mostly be spending the next week contemplating how I am going to start my PhD 1<sup>st</sup> year report, probably without actually writing anything chemistry related. Having also been introduced to the wonders of <a href="http://www.prezi.com/">Prezi</a> recently, I might also write the presentation I have to give on my work a week on Thursday. For those of you who have not come across this gem of a website, it’s essentially a slightly more interesting and intuitive version of Powerpoint. Give it a go, you’ll be zooming around your presentations in no time (you’ll see what I mean once you sign up). </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Finally, the <a href="http://www.lablit.com/article/659">piece I wrote for lablit.com</a> is up. Have a read, I’m moderately pleased with it. Any comments would as always be appreciated!</div>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com46tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-26789999721375195472011-04-05T21:38:00.002+01:002011-04-05T21:38:59.355+01:00Comedy Tuesday...<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>I’ve had the last couple of days off as I was in London last night seeing the awesome Peter Kay at the O2 arena. Needless to say, a considerable number of shandies were consumed by all involved and I woke up this morning not feeling particularly fresh to say the least. However, a pint of Kronenbourg and an all-day breakfast meant I was slightly more coherent and thus able to brave the Tube and, horror of horrors, London buses. This all went without a hitch and I got on my train home without too much hassle. I did a crossword, I looked out the window and then I fell asleep in possibly the most uncomfortable position I could muster at that point. An hour later, I pulled into the station and realised I had pins and needles in not just my leg but both arms as well. A couple of minutes were required to sort myself out before I proceeded on a Quasimodo-esque jaunt down the carriage attempting to get some blood back into my limbs. All I can say is that I’m glad no-one saw this.</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>This took the time to around about 4pm where I made the fundamental error of deciding to go to the lab for a bit before going home. I decided to work up the 3-hour long reaction I had left stirring for the past 4 days when I got there. The product is an amide, which I realised was in fact really water-soluble when I got a ~10% crude yield after standard work-up. After sitting there watching 100 mL of water vac down on the Buchi at half 6 on a Tuesday evening whilst mildly hungover, I needed some comedy (or at least something entertaining) to occur. Thankfully this came in the shape of a colleague down the corridor. A supposedly intelligent Masters student had just asked her how to make brine. She was nice and told her to put salt in water, whereas if it was me I’d have probably told her to slowly neutralise concentrated hydrochloric acid with sodium hydroxide. Thinking about it, maybe that’s why I wasn’t asked in the first place.</div>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-13779924257966191662011-03-28T22:08:00.002+01:002011-03-28T22:08:54.277+01:00Lab Mishaps #5: The Duel Threat<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:PixelsPerInch>72</o:PixelsPerInch> <o:TargetScreenSize>544x376</o:TargetScreenSize> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span> </span>I can only apologise once again for the lack of posting on my part, but I’m having one of those periods which I am sure happens to every grad student where very little works and I’m finding it exceptionally difficult to be too bothered about it for fear of a complete meltdown.<a name='more'></a> This was proven to me today when a simple column with pretty good separation between the three spots crapped out on me completely and everything came out at once in the space of the first eleven fractions. I’ve had a think and there are in fact very few ways I would less rather spend half an hour or so. Cleaning vials, setting up the column, giving yourself minor silicosis, and then proceeding to fill vials with assorted rubbish which in my case has rarely if ever been what I was after in the first place. This is then repeated <i>ad infinitum</i> until something good happens. In my case, I’m beginning to think this may end up being on a geological timescale. Absolute nightmare.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span> </span>My esteemed colleague from earlier lab mishaps had a bumper week last week by having not one but two fires. The first involved a THF still. I don’t know many details about it although the immortal phrase “my hands were on fire but I had to think of the still” were used at some point. Following this, a fire extinguisher was utilized to great effect and an ungodly amount of pink powder found its way into the fumehood. Following excessive amounts of pointing and laughing, a line was drawn underneath this event and we all went on with our lives.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span> </span>Not 48 hours later, I receive a text saying our favourite culprit has been at it again. Whilst doing a small amount of spring cleaning in his lab, our esteemed colleague decided to wash out some old Winchesters. To cut a long story short, one of them contained about an inch of THF in the bottle along with a couple of feet of sodium wire. I am reliably informed there was then a geyser-type eruption out the top along with what can only be described as a blazing inferno. Unbelievable work there I must say. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Anyway, there will hopefully be more from me later in the week. Stay tuned as well at <a href="http://www.lablit.com/">www.lablit.com</a> where fingers crosses I will hopefully have a piece up this week sometime.</span></div>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-87895263714768513432011-03-24T15:57:00.002+00:002011-03-24T15:57:49.623+00:00Sorry about the lack of posts...<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">I can only apologise for the recent lack of posts here, but things keep coming up just as I think to myself that writing something is a good idea. I have in fact written something for the awesome <a href="http://www.lablit.com/">www.lablit.com</a> which should be up there in the next few days so all is not lost on that front. <br />
<span> <a name='more'></a> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Seeing as I am in the UK, March is normally a month where you need to wear something fairly heavy-duty if you’re walking around outside for too long. However, for a reason unbeknownst to me the weather is currently bucking this trend completely. It’s a relatively balmy 16 degrees (that’s Celsius, not Fahrenheit) outside and there is not a cloud in the sky. This is making is really, really difficult to concentrate for any extended period of time on any task that does not involve going outside and either throwing a ball around or having a cheeky mid-afternoon lager (or both in some rare cases). As such, productivity has not been quite as high as normal. I recall a post recently where I did 14 reactions in a week, I can’t remember off the top of my head but I imagine the weather was pretty horrible that week. Needless to say, the chances of that number of reactions being repeated this week are slim to none. Anyway, my legendary procrastination skills are besides the point. I’ve finally had some half-decent results (if you can call 30% ee half-decent) along with an interesting conundrum which I am yet to figure out. As much as I would like to share it here, I imagine my supervisor wouldn’t be best pleased! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">That’s about enough from me for now. I’ll make sure I post a bit more than I have been doing. Keep an eye on lablit.com and see if you can figure out who I am when my post is put on there later in the week </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Wingdings;"><span></span></span><span lang="EN-GB"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-51871490739426052172011-03-12T19:24:00.000+00:002011-03-12T19:24:13.586+00:00Another weekend in the lab...<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>A busy yet fairly disappointing week in the lab was finished yesterday night the way it normally is, with several pints of Guinness and a bag of cheese and onion McCoy’s in the union bar. I got in from this all too often Friday night excursion, made some food and fell asleep around 11:30.</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>I had every intention of spending this morning in the city centre buying a few bits and pieces and running some errands before going to the lab to do a couple of things around 2pm. I eventually woke up at around 1pm feeling excellent but with no time to go into town. I knew I was tired, but when I sleep for nearly 14 hours straight at the weekend I think that proves I may need to sleep more during the week! </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>My standard Saturday bacon sandwich and a quick bike ride into work meant I arrived a bit after 2pm. There was dry THF in the still from the day before so I took my opportunity to make the Grignard I’ve been putting off all week. Getting any significant amount of dry solvent out of the two stills in our lab during the week when there are 15 people working in the lab with you is generally like getting blood out of a stone. As such, I tend to leave any large scale stuff that has to be really dry to the weekend when someone isn’t going to pilfer the solvent I’ve just collected when I leave the lab or turn my back for more than about 30 seconds. Anyway, PhMgBr was prepared without too many issues. The undergrads here don’t even do it under nitrogen when they make it in labs so I was quite pleased when mine initiated on its own without so much as a tickle from the heat-gun. A nice uneventful cannula transfer and all was good in the world with that reaction. Seeing as I was now on what some might call a roll, two more reactions were set up left stirring for a couple of days. I now have loads to do on Monday, but that’s all ok with me seeing as there’s nothing worse than having nothing to do whilst sitting around in the lab watching someone steal your dry solvents…</div>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-10297362042902712632011-03-09T22:47:00.000+00:002011-03-09T22:47:11.792+00:00Writer's Block...<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>I’ve been suffering from pretty intense writer’s block for the last few days and as such I haven’t posted anything. Apologies for that, but life has been pretty hectic. I had a meeting with my two supervisors last week and was informed I am not a complete idiot, which was nice. My ideas were deemed to not be ridiculous and I was provided with a nice long list of others to be getting on with as well. While this is excellent for the project, it has meant a few long days in the lab since and will probably mean a day (albeit a leisurely one) in the lab on Saturday. Oh well, such is life.</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>We’ve had a couple of entertaining moments recently in the lab. One fantastic long-term error came to light recently when a colleague informed us all she had been using the wrong starting material for one of her projects for the last three months. I can only say I wish I was there when she told my boss. It would have been a sight to behold for sure. The other mistake concerned our nice new lab microwave. It’s a pretty fancy piece of kit and is more intelligent than our somewhat antiquated NMR’s (although this is soon to change as we’ve just had a spanking new Bruker installed) and is definitely more intelligent than some of the undergrad project students I’ve come across. It will tell you if you’re about to do something wrong but one thing it will not do is notice if you don’t put enough solvent in the tubes that it uses. This was discovered by a guy in my lab who didn’t quite reach the minimum fill level line on his tube. The result is shown below:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj4_V1elNOs_x89_QPDkzIV3aoGShwigUwloI-BW-EGkoU5QdcVfHjIAwdbV-2MyccHF_1_yw3dVbVlhdVUBzsfrSo6u58ZRiLxS0cS0740q9MwkhF1URJmMMoRuqandWYglFDG6cZ6b63/s1600/IMG00052-20110309-1800.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj4_V1elNOs_x89_QPDkzIV3aoGShwigUwloI-BW-EGkoU5QdcVfHjIAwdbV-2MyccHF_1_yw3dVbVlhdVUBzsfrSo6u58ZRiLxS0cS0740q9MwkhF1URJmMMoRuqandWYglFDG6cZ6b63/s320/IMG00052-20110309-1800.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">The tubes are made of transparent glass and the starting material was colourless. Oh dear. Anyway, one new part and the microwave was back to work within the week. Turns out it's pretty robust as well as intelligent. Anyway, more from me later in the week hopefully. Ciao for now.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-23319045615515075002011-03-05T14:25:00.000+00:002011-03-05T14:25:08.419+00:00The Triumphant Return from Man-Flu<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Following the aformentioned bout of man-flu, I have in fact had an exceptionally productive week this week. My lab book informs me that I finished 14 reactions, 13 of which worked (the starting material was at fault for the one that didn’t work, I left an acid chloride in the fridge for too long and it hydrolysed). Exceptionally, not one of these reactions required purification by the dreaded column chromatography either, which is possibly why I got so much done. Nothing makes a coffee break sound so appealing as the prospect of a column at 4pm on a Thursday afternoon. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">I’m at a bit of a standstill with my project currently as I can’t actually do any catalyst runs. Our chiral HPLC has given up the ghost and decided to stop working in any way, shape or form. As such, I’m currently making a load of potential catalysts which are sitting in vials just waiting to be tested. This means I can do all sorts of chemistry (I prepared PhMgBr this week for the first time since I was a lowly second year undergrad making tetraphenyltin) but it doesn’t get me that much closer to the elusive first publication. Oh well, these things happen I guess but I am going to have a lovely few days of catalyst runs (along with half the lab) to do when the HPLC is up and running again. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">There have been very few mistakes/mishaps in the department this week other than the dreaded “dropping a dichloromethane solution of step 5 of your synthesis into the grotty water bath of your rotovac and proceeding to splash grams of strongly coloured pink phthalocyanin all over your bench and yourself” like an unfortunate colleague down the corridor did this week. Word on the grapevine was her boss checked she was alright then proceeded to take photos and laugh, which to be fair is exactly what I would have done in the situation.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Thinking about it, I recall a very similar incident when I was an undergrad. I packed a column, carefully added my compound to the top of the silica, topped up the solvent, added pressure with some bellows, and opened the tap to start taking fractions. Silica shot out of the bottom of that column at great speed as I realised I hadn’t put cotton wool at the bottom and there was in fact nothing to stop the whole lot coming out of the tap when I opened it. My supervisor also picked that moment to come and check everything was ok. He laughed as well, though I can only thank him for not taking photos.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Anyway, that’s enough from me today. I’m off to a do at my boss’ place this evening, so I can only imagine the liquor will be flowing. I’ll post tomorrow if I can get myself out of bed and remain upright long enough to type something meaningful.</div>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-61730680962305467642011-03-01T21:44:00.000+00:002011-03-01T21:44:57.335+00:00A bit of chemistry for a change...<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">After what can only be described as a rant post yesterday I thought I would actually talk about chemistry today. Everything worked today, I ran an excellent old-school esterification. Bubbling HCl gas (made by adding conc. sulfuric acid to sodium chloride) through a methanol solution of a carboxylic acid for 10 minutes gave 100% yield of the methyl ester I was after. I love chemistry like this.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Anyway, I wanted to mention a total synthesis I found on the RSC website yesterday. As Totally Synthetic has shown, the Cortistatins have been synthesised fairly frequently since their isolation. However, this work by Pauline Chiu from the University of Hong Kong really caught my eye. Every so often I see a synthesis where all the steps just make complete sense to me to the point where I can’t believe no-one has thought of it before. The two-page communication details twelve steps to the pentacyclic core of Cortistatin A which is pretty highly functionalised with a fair amount of stereochemical complexity to boot. Take a look at the full paper for details but the step which really got me was the [4+3] cyclisation of an epoxy enol silane with a diene to form that fused central ring system. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://img189.imageshack.us/i/76799730.gif/"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlFEY3fruDZsLGbrBCLsfRA9N0et3T15VbIdsUvq-yXTw1Z3ororX_4VTfhYkYi7HDItdl2PcbLWOOoS2T89-Hx6JxP2CdAjTTIwmvCI7e7ouPaBWFJxZBJiLGIyZBqrLvUOpwSCJO0do4/s320/untitled.gif" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"> It’s one of the first times I’ve seen something like this in my (short) career as a chemist and it inspired me to write this post to show that I am actually a chemist and not just a professional moaner… </div>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-16248019212918528902011-02-28T22:57:00.000+00:002011-02-28T22:57:00.162+00:00The Curse of Man-Flu<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Evening all, apologies for the lack of a post over the weekend. I’ve been all over the place this weekend and haven’t had a chance to do much at all blogwise. I had a game yesterday which involved a 6 hour round trip and standing in a field for 3 hours in between. As such, I have been struck down finally with that most terrifying of maladies, the one which strikes fear into the hearts of all it inflicts. That’s right folks, I’ve got man-flu. To the female readership, none of you can possibly imagine the minor flu-like symptoms which constitute man-flu but I can assure you that I am currently at the brink of death and am far more ill than you can possibly contemplate.</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Bearing this in mind, you can imagine my disgust when I walked into the lab this morning to find one of the reactions I had left on over the weekend on its side with no stopper in it nowhere near a stirrer plate and that its contents had congealed into a small green ball on one side of the flask. After voicing my concern at this predicament pretty loudly, everyone in the lab pleaded ignorance and went about their work while I stamped around looking irritated until coffee time. Fortunately, the caffeine boost I so greatly desired had the required effect and my mood gradually improved throughout the morning. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>I worked up the aforementioned green blob which gave me nice colourless oil which was almost pure by NMR. Unfortunately, my yield for said reaction was somewhere in the region of 107%. While this would of course be excellent, several fundamental laws of physics prevent this from being the case and consequently that flask was dried for a few hours under vacuum (at least that’s what the experimental section of my thesis will say, in reality I meant to dry it for an hour and subsequently forgot about it). </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>All this work meant I didn’t get round to eating anything until around 4pm. The caffeine buzz had long worn off by this point, and after queuing behind three or four cretins who take 10 minutes each to withdraw money from the cash point (presumably for their quarterly subscription to the lobotomy appreciation society) I was fully irritated. The fact that the coffee shop on campus had run out of their exciting range of borderline edible food meant I had to make do with a “delicious, nutritious, and home-made” sandwich from another of the many campus food outlets. I can assure you my sandwich was precisely none of the above. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>I got back to work, contemplated doing a column, decided that was a terrible idea seeing as man-flu had now taken a firm, chilling grasp upon me, and resorted to looking at the literature for a while before I came home. I found a cracking looking total synthesis which I’ll write about a bit more tomorrow (when I can be bothered with drawing stuff on Chemdraw) so you all have that to look forward to, or not as the case may be. </div>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-72745906697698613662011-02-26T15:15:00.001+00:002011-02-27T22:55:42.418+00:00A few of my favourite things...<div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://chemjobber.blogspot.com/">Chemjobber</a>, the guys at <a href="http://www.coronene.com/blog/?p=1257">CBC</a>, <a href="http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2010/05/07/a-few-of-my-favorite-chemistry-things/">Azmanam</a>, <a href="http://labmonkey4hire.blogspot.com/">LabMonkey4Hire</a>, <a href="http://sciencegeist.net/">ScienceGeist </a>and others I'm sure I've missed have been posting about their favourite things in the lab so I thought I would wade in with some of my own personal favourite moments inside and outside the lab:<br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><ul><li><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>The smell of DCM and Et<sub>2</sub>O (all of you who like the smell of ethyl acetate are, quite frankly, wrong).</li>
</ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>Fluffy crystals (even if I am just removing TEA.HCl or pyridine.HCl from a reaction, a crystal is a crystal)</li>
</ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>Putting a horrible looking oil on the hi-vac and it forming a nice solid foam which is much easier to work with.</li>
</ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>Spot-to-spot conversion on a TLC plate (an all too irregular occurrence)</li>
</ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>Working in the lab on a Saturday afternoon with just one other person who shares your taste in music. </li>
</ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>Recrystallizing black goo to give colourless crystals.</li>
</ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>Taking an NMR of that horrible, wet, brown oil you’ve just produced and realising it is in fact completely pure. </li>
</ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>Having enough sample in an NMR tube to run a perfect <sup>13</sup>C spectrum in 16 scans.</li>
</ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>Having a conversation about organocatalysis with a fellow chemist in really loud voices in a cab rank at 4am after having consumed way too much liquor.</li>
</ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>Getting perfect separation on the column you’re running in a total of 20 fractions in about 20 minutes (Excimer @ CBC likes this too, apparently).</li>
</ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>Having a conversation with people about a reaction mechanism and not saying anything completely ridiculous (this doesn’t happen very often).</li>
</ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>That rare moment when an undergrad in the teaching lab listens to exactly what you say and gets a better yield than anyone else. This is made better when they say thanks at the end of the session and I don’t feel like my whole day has been a complete waste of time.</li>
</ul><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-42566181812946147282011-02-23T20:38:00.000+00:002011-02-23T20:38:03.717+00:00Midweek Blues<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">I arrived slightly later than I would have liked this morning due to the fact I may or may not have had one too many midweek lagers last night.</div><a name='more'></a> After a coffee (the Nespresso machine in our office has been taking a bit of a hammering this week) and still feeling slightly the worse for wear, I proceeded to start my day’s work. First up was a lithium aluminium hydride (LithAl for the British readership) reduction, a reaction that always works but is also always a pain to do. There just isn’t an interesting way of slowly adding powdered LiAlH<sub>4</sub> to a THF solution of the compound in question over the course of half an hour or more and you definitely can’t do it too quickly for fear of getting boiling THF and lithium salts all over your fumehood. Anyway, that reaction was set up and heated to reflux for the majority of the day. I then set about working up some catalyst runs I set up yesterday. I somehow completely failed to purify anything in the first column I did so the other three I have to do were shelved until tomorrow when I’m hopefully in a better mood.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">I brought my laptop to work this morning with the intention of spending some of my spare time writing up the experimental section of my thesis. I did not in fact manage any of this today but I did install a piece of software which I had never heard of, Mendeley. Essentially, it’s a reference organiser much like Endnote (a piece of software I never really got on with) which is really user-friendly with a lot of genuinely helpful features. Finally, and best of all, it’s completely free of charge. I recommend giving it a try if you are going to be writing a thesis in the next few years. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Anyway, back to the chemistry. Having spent 20 minutes adding NaOH solution to my reduction, I then proceeded to go through the standard workup. Extract organics into diethyl ether, wash with brine, dry with magnesium sulfate and then filter and remove solvent. Easy right? I first proceeded to find the only blocked sinter funnel in the lab and attempted to use that. I then found the wettest sinter funnel in the lab and looked on in horror as my nice clear solution went decidedly cloudy on its way through the sinter. Drying it again and removing the solvent gave me something resembling pure product which I promptly left on my bench ready for tomorrow where I will probably throw it all over the floor and have to start over. It’s shaping up to be one of those weeks. </div>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-56936389390270958492011-02-21T23:14:00.000+00:002011-02-21T23:14:54.993+00:00Lab Mishaps No. 4 - How Not To Clean Your Glassware<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Today passed in the lab pretty swimmingly, I got two steps done on one thing I am working on along with the final step of making that precursor I was talking about last week AND the work-up of the N-phenylproline methyl ester I was working on over the weekend. To top this off I managed not to drop anything, break anything and managed to maintain a fairly decent mood throughout the day. All in all, I can’t complain. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>To top this off, I heard about a particularly unbelievable bout of sheer stupidity over the weekend. Not half an hour had passed after I left on Saturday when this occurred. Firstly, I’ll set the scene. When I have a lot of dirty glassware (normally test-tubes for collecting column fractions) I’ll set up a sonicator full of acetone and methanol and give the tubes a blitz in there to get rid of any residual gunk once I’ve cleaned them in hot water. When a friend of mine (who uses a lot of highly-coloured organometallic stuff) needs to clean sintered glass he soaks them in nitric acid to get rid of the coloured stuff. These are both valid means of achieving nice sparkly glassware. However, what our esteemed colleague did on Saturday was attempt to combine the two methods by putting a heady mix of concentrated <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitric_acid">nitric acid</a> (horrible stuff) and acetone into a sonic bath and wash her flasks in that. I am assured that it took all of five seconds for her fumehood to fill with thick, brown, toxic, corrosive <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_dioxide">nitrogen dioxide</a> once the on button was pushed. All you can do in those situations is sit, watch your fumehood until the gas goes away and pray to a higher being that no-one important walks in.</div>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-70905186589998820162011-02-20T00:27:00.001+00:002011-02-20T00:28:22.640+00:00Saturday at work...<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: small;">Yesterday was largely uneventful and I decided against boring you all with the details. The week ended on a moderately high note in that nothing went wrong and everything <i>seems</i> to be working. I put on a reaction last night, one that I had never done before; a Cu(I)-catalysed N-arylation. Refluxing proline, bromobenzene, K<sub>2</sub>CO<sub>3</sub> and copper (I) iodide in everyone’s favourite solvent DMF (according to my last post) sounds pretty nasty but it does go blue, which is always nice to see. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-indent: 36pt;"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-CNyO_utgfkB9yisQHvs9zlfgZXgWm8H8-KIZcUkFzdu39SBOUdXZBm6hfgrO2asN7QTW6mKK4ICxin5fc0hfzcX6WgiXnOCqekPrdU-Xy2I01T577f_Zsc5WXQ6Vk3bKK-Thu9BI8-ey/s1600/IMG00047-20110218-1633.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-CNyO_utgfkB9yisQHvs9zlfgZXgWm8H8-KIZcUkFzdu39SBOUdXZBm6hfgrO2asN7QTW6mKK4ICxin5fc0hfzcX6WgiXnOCqekPrdU-Xy2I01T577f_Zsc5WXQ6Vk3bKK-Thu9BI8-ey/s320/IMG00047-20110218-1633.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: small;">I had to pop into work today to add another reagent to that reaction, the lovely dimethyl sulfate, so I can leave it until Monday morning. A nice easy work-up (if you can call it that with DMF and dimethyl sulfate in there) should give me N-phenylproline methyl ester which would be most excellent. Three steps from there gives me another page of thesis and puts me a small step closer to making head or tail of my project. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">I was just contemplating heading home when my boss walked into the lab. It was an open day at the university which I knew nothing about so I hung around a bit to get a look at the chemists of tomorrow. I popped into the lab next door to see a colleague (the colleague in fact made famous by the aforementioned t-BuLi incident swearing and emptying a round-bottomed flask into the waste solvent. He was attempting to make cyclohexylmagnesium bromide as far as I know. He had rigorously dried his three-necked flask, added his magnesium and dry diethyl ether, attached a condenser and was adding cyclohexyl bromide to the mixture along with the customary crystal of iodine for initiation when he noticed what he thought was ether condensing on his condenser. Closer inspection showed he had a crack in the water coil and was dripping water at an alarming rate into his reaction. I laughed, he swore some more and went about flame-drying another flask ready to start again. I left at this point.</span></span>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-51010876120637738292011-02-17T18:34:00.001+00:002011-02-18T23:36:21.558+00:00The Story of the Neverending Column<div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">I draw ever closer to something that resembles my target molecule. Today’s attempt at chemistry comes in the form of adding a TBDPS group to a primary alcohol I spent yesterday making. The reaction in question was put on last night and worked up this morning. TBDPSCl, imidazole, and my substrate at room temperature in DMF was stirred overnight and quenched and worked up in the normal way this morning. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"> The literature reference for this compound told me it required purification by column chromatography (a phrase that always makes my blood run cold) eluting with 2:1 petrol and ethyl acetate. This compound has taken me a few days to prepare and I learnt very quickly as a PhD student not to trust the literature on stuff like this so I thought I would play it safe and use 4:1 instead, just to increase the separation of the three spots. “This should be a nice easy column, I’ll be done in an hour or so” I thought to myself and set about taking fractions. The first two spots came off within the first ten fractions along with the first signs of the major product which I can only assume to be the one I want. NMR of the first two fractions showed me that one was assorted crap and one was what I assume to be unreacted TBDPSCl. I then increased the amount of ethyl acetate in my solvent mixture and continued collecting fraction after fraction after fraction...</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Eighty fractions later following a particularly interesting regimen of “take fraction, TLC, stain, cry, repeat” my patience was starting to wane somewhat as this final product showed absolutely no signs of slowing down. As I’m sure I have mentioned previously, I will do almost anything to avoid running a column but this one really takes the cake. I assume what is coming off is pure (I’m removing the solvent as I write this) but cannot describe to the non-chemists amongst those of you who read this how boring it is collecting fractions that come out the bottom of a column. I don’t make anything which is a nice colour, I don’t make anything fluorescent and I don’t make anything which smells nice so I just have to sit there and hope my column is working OK before I check at the end. This purgatory can and does go on for extended periods of time and takes up a solid proportion of my time in the lab. Anyway, if this stuff is not completely pure and in at least 95% yield I’m going to be dramatically unimpressed (I joke of course, anything remotely positive will do for me at the moment).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Anyway, I have training tonight so I’m going to spend the next two hours running around in the cold to hopefully let off some steam so I can get back “in the game” so to speak in the morning. Tonight I can only pray to the chromatography gods in the hope that tomorrow will provide me with a slightly more fruitful way to spend my time, like doing some chemistry that might actually be publishable at some point in the future.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></div>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-39643768646216211892011-02-15T23:41:00.000+00:002011-02-15T23:41:20.506+00:00Errr.... It has been pointed out today that yesterday's post could have put the institution that I work at in a bad light. I hasten to add now that this was never my intention and that I had merely had a particularly poor day yesterday. The actions of a few students and/or myself are not an indication of the day-to-day events within the department. I have nothing but fine words to say about my department and group. I am relatively new (three weeks to be precise) to the whole process of blogging and realise now that I'll have to reign in my slightly more extreme opinions on certain topics. They don't necessarily represent the views of the University at which I work and are in fact completely my own. <br />
<br />
Apologies to anyone who has taken any offence, it was in no way intended.amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-6385270294056077492011-02-14T21:22:00.003+00:002011-02-14T21:31:38.084+00:00The Woes of Demonstrating<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">I’ve had a day of demonstrating today. While this does put a bit of extra cash in my pocket at the end of the month, it is one of the more thankless tasks I have ever had the pleasure of doing. </div><a name='more'></a>I’ve posted previously on the sheer stupidity exhibited by these chemists of tomorrow, but I don’t recall a time when I was an undergraduate when I went out of my way to make the life of the demonstrators in the teaching labs really difficult. First things first this morning was a bromination of aniline. Dissolve bromine in acetic acid, and slowly add to a solution of aniline in acetic acid at 0 <sup>o</sup>C until the bromine colour persists. Easy right? Wrong. Having watched people carrying fairly large quantities of bromine around in the lab in open flasks, I could practically feel myself brominating. A few less than kind words to certain individuals may or may not have made me the flavour of the month, but at least I knew I wasn’t going to end up in hospital.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Following a barrage of stupid questions (Why isn’t my solution boiling? What colour is my reaction meant to go? Does my non-halogenated, organic waste go in the non-halogenated organic waste bottle?) and equally ridiculous actions (turning up the tap connected to the reflux condenser as high as it will go then proceeding to attempt to put a reaction on in what can only be described as monsoon-like conditions) to back them up, I gulped down a substandard baguette and a coffee at lunch before returning to more of the same. I for one didn’t realise that a recrystallization was a difficult concept to grasp once it has been explained once or twice but apparently I am in the small minority here. I watched today in disbelief as time after time people dissolved their product in huge amounts of ethanol and then wondered why lovely white crystals were not forthcoming. I gave up in the end and just watched them struggle for a while. My understanding, helpful side had literally been bludgeoned out of me and been replaced with my cynical, sarcastic one. The final straw that broke the camel’s back was being informed that someone “had no crystals, innit?” which was rasped at me in such a way that the assumption was that it was clearly my fault that a 5 gram reaction had produced 20 mg of amorphous crap. Having resisted the urge to throw myself out of the window at that point, I calmly pointed out that the activated charcoal they had used now consisted of approximately 80% pure crystalline 2,4,6-tribromobenzene and that a quick recrystallization would result in a much higher yield. He looked at me as though I’d just urinated on his shoes, threw his little bag of crud in the box and walked out. I can only hope I am marking his script, that’s all I’m going to say.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">A two hour French lesson following my day of demonstrating was not high on my list of things I wanted to do. However, I persevered and am now a minute step closer to understanding that bizarre language they speak across the Channel. I sit here now, with something to eat and listening to some Elliott Smith, ranting about my day and it is definitely having the desired therapeutic effect. I hope everyone who has the (mis)fortune to stumble upon this enjoys reading about my day half as much as I did not enjoy taking part in it :P</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Until next time, thanks for reading as always.</div>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-54495031948488936872011-02-12T15:55:00.000+00:002011-02-12T15:55:03.096+00:00End of another week...<a href=""><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">It’s been two days without a post from myself now so I thought I would break the deadlock, so to speak. Thursday passed by largely without incident, apart from the fact I had my first American Football training in a year. That was what can only be described as a shock to the system, and Friday morning was spent hobbling around in a John Wayne-esque manner moaning about life and generally not doing much in the way of anything too strenuous. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">I was introduced to another prospective project student around lunchtime. Following a whistlestop tour of my last year of work, I was once again told I was “enthusiastic” and “interesting”. Following a couple of dreams of grandeur where I broke away from my group and formed my own, I was also informed that she didn’t really have any idea what I was talking about, which to be fair I kind of expected but hoped she wouldn’t actually tell me. Oh well, worse things have happened.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Yesterday afternoon was the viva of a former group member. He worked in the lab for a week when I started so I knew who he was and then finished. He passed, my boss cracked out three bottles of champagne and the start of the descent into a night of drunken stupor began at approximately 4:30pm. At 11:30pm when we were finally kicked out of the pub, I’d gone against every aspect of my new year’s resolution and consumed a solid number of pints of ale. Any excuse, eh?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">I’ve not really mentioned a lot of chemistry in this post, so I’ll pose a conundrum to anyone who is interested. We found this piece of glassware not too long ago in the lab, and no-one has any idea what it is for. If anyone has a clue, I’m sure people in the lab would be interested to know. Here it is:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://img51.imageshack.us/i/img00043201102041739.jpg/"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEQM-sot1cInEhyaTKZeEwbir4uBiyWlI3HzY7BMP5JcYXQCEzIW9dtbEZPm5fPcH155g348C4gEZHglEDz62idPLZ5WapcegsbdzpkMKGZLQeqb_2bV8sGdx4Tyn6nQ_kT12y9GQA3QuQ/s320/IMG00043-20110204-1739.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Today, the day that all chemists secretly dread finally came for me. To make any of the catalysts I have used thus far involves a three step synthesis to form a precursor which can then be turned into any number of different compounds. Yesterday, I ran out of said precursor. Thus, the time has come to make some more. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">I normally start with 10 grams of starting material but decided to be slightly more ambitious yesterday and went with 20. The first step, a triflation, gives perfect colourless crystals in anywhere from 90-97% yield. While this is nice of course, the work-up of said reaction involves absorbing the crude compound onto silica gel and then passing the lot through a short pad of more silica eluting with petrol. Now, this takes long enough (around 3 litres of petrol if you use a wide sinter and not too much silica). However, we do not have many large sinters in the lab and potentially 38 g of product along with the rest of the reagents do not absorb particularly well onto silica in the first place. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Five litres of petrol and about 3 hours on the rotary evaporator later, product was still flying off the silica at a rate of knots. I made the rash decision to start recycling petrol from the Buchi trap and soldiered on. I spent a grand total of 6 hours on this today before I finally gave up and went home for the night. Tomorrow I have the enviable task of getting the last few grams of product out of my sinter full of silica and then take the lot and put it all on for a Kumada coupling. The same coupling in fact from the first Lab Mishaps post I made a couple of weeks ago. This is definitely shaping up to be a moderately productive, if slightly boring week. Oh well, I should end up with 10 grams or so of my desired compound by the end of the week, more if I can face the prospect of a particularly slow and painful column on Friday afternoon. Chances are the answer to that question will be a resounding no.</div>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-60935491201403045322011-02-08T22:09:00.001+00:002011-02-08T23:38:21.704+00:00The Quest For Crystals<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Apologies for the lack of a post yesterday. A (very) late night out watching the Superbowl as well as a 2 hour French lesson yesterday evening meant I was running on empty by the time I got home. An early night and a session in the gym this morning as well as some completely uncharacteristic warm and sunny weather and I am revitalised and ready to tell you about my continued failure to get anywhere with my many and varied ideas for the next big advancement in the chemical sciences and more specifically, organocatalysis.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">My current minor foray into sugar chemistry has left me yearning for, and in some cases expecting crystals. Every chemist secretly (or in the case of the guys over at <a href="http://www.coronene.com/blog/?p=1047">Carbon-Based Curiosities</a>, completely openly) hopes for inch long colourless crystals at the end of every experiment. Of course, this happens maybe once a year, maybe even less in some cases but that magical moment when it does goes a good way to keeping most of us sane. It just reminds me that I’m not a complete moron (very often) and that I might actually be halfway decent at what I do.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Anyway, on to today’s quota of frankly rubbish luck. I’ve now been trying to get a crystal structure of a compound for quite some time. I’ve tried everything I can think of, but today I finally thought I had made a breakthrough. I changed the counter-ion of this salt I’ve prepared, removed the solvent, dissolved the residue in hot ethanol, left it to cool slowly, waited around until 7pm, and there they were. Small pale yellow crystals. I filtered them, washed with cold ethanol, dried them, took them down to the NMR room to see an NMR which looks like complete crap. I have no idea how this has happened but it genuinely made me wonder why I bother with it sometimes!</span></div>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-43762786553396831932011-02-06T15:08:00.000+00:002011-02-06T15:08:48.849+00:00Lab Mishaps No. 3 - The Old Switcheroo<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Strangely, no-one did anything in the lab this week which one would class as either stupid or remotely dangerous. I was however regaled with a tale by a new postdoc we have working in the lab which he was witness to at his previous institution. At first I did not believe a word of it but he swears blind this is true.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><a name='more'></a> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>I’ll set the scene. Nearly every reaction a chemist does requires a work-up of some sort. This will involve washing your reaction mixture (usually) with water, acid or base, and saturated brine. This removes any inorganic crud from your reaction mixture and makes purification of your required product a bit easier. The final step is then adding solid magnesium sulfate to your solvent to remove any water which is let in your organic solvent. A simple filtration should then give a dry solution of your product (or, more commonly, mixture of products). MgSO<sub>4</sub> is an innocuous white powder which reacts with very little whatsoever. To all intents and purposes, it is inert.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>On the other hand, should one want to remove an acidic proton from a compound, sodium hydride is a commonly used strong base. It’s a white or slightly grey powder which is pyrophoric and in no way innocuous whatsoever. Any hint of water anywhere and NaH will give off hydrogen gas, set on fire, and then ignite the hydrogen gas. As such, it is used under inert conditions and is often provided as a dispersion of the powder in inert oil to prevent unwanted fires. However, this leaves grease in your reaction and many people (myself included) prefer to use the 95% pure stuff.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Now, on to the unbelievable piece of lab stupidity. Apparently, a particularly foolhardy PhD student at my colleague’s previous place of work used a lot of NaH in his work. It is usually sent out in 50 gram batches in a plastic bag encased in what looks like a paint can. It is really irritating to get a desired amount of the powder from the bottom of said bag without getting it everywhere. In my lab, it is dispensed into glass vials in 2 gram portions and kept in a desiccator. What this imbecile did was find a decent sized tub (which happened to contain MgSO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">4</span> in a previous like) and put his NaH in there. Now this is all well and good, but what he also did was fail to change the label on the tub.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>I had my head in my hands as the story reached this point. What followed was an unfortunate soul who wished to dry his flask full of wet, albeit highly flammable solvent. A few shouts and the use of a fire blanket later, everyone fortunately came out unscathed, apart possibly from the original culprit. I’d have caved the guy’s skull in if it had happened in my lab!</div>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-86042492487066652792011-02-05T14:42:00.000+00:002011-02-05T14:42:19.526+00:00Some Perspective...<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Following my frankly rubbish Thursday, my supervisor came into the lab at 5:30 and informed me I would be going to the pub with him, and that I would be doing so within 5 minutes of being told as such. I’d not really had anything to drink since New Year’s Eve, and I had had a pretty below par day so I thought I would go and have a cheeky pint of Guinness before going home and sorting out some notes and assorted other rubbish I had accumulated over the past week, ready to finish up some chemistry on Friday and have nothing to do over the weekend.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Five pints of Guinness and a Chinese takeaway later, I went to bed with that feeling of having a layer of cotton wool wrapped around your brain. I forgot my normal hangover prevention cure of two Nurofens and a pint of water that night and as such woke up on Friday morning with what can only be described as a headache and a powerful, powerful thirst.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>I got to the lab half an hour later than I would have liked and already in a bad mood. My attempts at recrystallizing a compound I made about a month ago had once again completely failed, we had no liquid nitrogen for the hi-vac trap and the reaction which I am convinced should work had not worked even slightly. Great.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">While this is maybe the 4<sup>th</sup> attempt I have made at this reaction my heart goes out to those unfortunate souls <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/89/i06/8906news5.html">mentioned in the C&EN news</a> this week who have been working on the aglycone of the natural product lomaiviticin which has been published in <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja200034b">JACS</a> (doi: 10.1021/ja200034b). While my patience generally runs out after a week or so of failed reactions, these guys got to the final step of their 11 step synthesis and had to try to 1500 (!) different sets of conditions before finally finding the manganese complex they ended up using and completing the (pretty damn complex) molecule. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/6284/lovaimaticin.png"><img border="0" height="137" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyk-8ZawIFfy01X3M3XEkmZfsHAvuDRJw70KD5cWCpidJjQppYeMorxcNEfx9CO159ZjVYYcrKxW8Aihi5MRehAPBni2V617uHYrFOATgMObEWytKuBaaHaK9rypX38NhJ21bptq5dMJAP/s400/lovaimaticin.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Even trying each of those reactions on 10 mg scale, they still must have to make 15 grams at least of a compound requiring ten steps to make. That Chemdraw took me a pretty long time to draw so kudos to them for finishing, I imagine there were some dark moments during those months/years spent working on that final step. I think it's a good thing that this sort of struggle is mentioned in the paper itself just so it's obvious how much of a pain being a grad student can be sometimes. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Anyway, I'll try and think of a good lab mishap for tomorrow and get it written up in the morning. Thanks for reading as always.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-85062324655780948262011-02-03T16:45:00.000+00:002011-02-03T16:45:45.326+00:00A new day, a new cock-up.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Nothing much of note happened yesterday, although I did spend a full 11 hours in the lab. Alas, when I finally got through the door at around 8:30pm I had what can only be described as writer’s block, possibly due to the fact I had only eaten soup all day. Considering I am what some people describe as fairly hefty, this was just not cutting it and I proceeded to eat everything I had left in my all but bare cupboards.<a name='more'></a> I then put my gym stuff in the washing machine, sat down to watch the football and came back an hour later to find all my clothes along with an impeccably clean, although completely waterlogged MP3 player. This began an approximately 20 minute swear-a-thon which crescendoed when I realised I had also lost my student I.D. card. This means I can’t go to the gym or get into the department out of normal working hours for the next few days while some jobsworth with a computer makes me a new card and then charges me £10 for the privilege of picking it up.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">I have spent the last few days getting ever closer to one of my target molecules and thus far have had a reasonably high success to failure ratio. Three steps went reasonably well up until this morning when I had half a gram of colourless oil which I spent yesterday afternoon purifying. An all too uncommon successful recrystallisation gave me nice shiny colourless crystals. Having then carefully filtered, dried and weighed said crystals, I then decided the best course of action would be to throw them all over myself instead of placing them in the intended labelled glass vial I had on the bench. Ten minutes of stamping round the lab with a face like a slapped arse later I managed to salvage at least some of them and put them on for the penultimate step of my synthesis. Whether or not that works in now in the hands of the chemistry gods, but I am assured by a paper with no experimental procedures, NMR data, or supporting information of any kind that it is a “facile transformation”. I am an unlucky person by nature, so this will probably prove to be a downright lie. I wait with baited breath.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Thursday afternoon in the department means we have a problem session with my supervisor and the majority of the postgraduates from my floor. Normally, there is at least one monumental balls-up in each session which then means the rest of the people in there get a good chance to get some group heckling done for an hour before everyone returns to their respective labs and stops talking to one another for another week. I have taken the liberty of drawing for you a personal favourite of mine from last year which came out of the mind of an unnamed but moderately intelligent Masters student. The mechanism in question was an m-CPBA epoxidation. As the chemists among you will know, this is not a difficult thing to grasp. This is the correct one:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_-c23L697cWlJiR55EGl87NslaJ74WplFiuJEq8dSqCaH9nnpRP_FsPqBv7XCxPNrE2gpMpKt3Vka6N6LV7UO15BwsKJqKuwKbpW7HYOwak5zntdW0mx0AL8Xdo6WWuq_ufsuZioq56Aa/s1600/mcpba.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="127" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_-c23L697cWlJiR55EGl87NslaJ74WplFiuJEq8dSqCaH9nnpRP_FsPqBv7XCxPNrE2gpMpKt3Vka6N6LV7UO15BwsKJqKuwKbpW7HYOwak5zntdW0mx0AL8Xdo6WWuq_ufsuZioq56Aa/s400/mcpba.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">If you don't understand this, don't worry because neither did the guy who had studied nearly four years of a chemistry degree. This is the dross that came out of the mind of the previously mentioned MSc student. Yes, that is a single molecule of oxygen you can see, just floating around in the reaction minding its own business. Also, after seeing that excellent piece of addition in the first step, who says chemists can’t do maths?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixcpYkVbFtnvTfiFB6Cywp-uRTW87VIyyfSL4anAk8CRUHT8WqY0MOWovpvJMfENskoGefLWBAD6C1jDlnBwZRAyjlwb3b8xuwt7TT1Areq_FuXDV77TVarnbfcCWMSdAFqy_haXGCDSBn/s1600/TD.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="43" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixcpYkVbFtnvTfiFB6Cywp-uRTW87VIyyfSL4anAk8CRUHT8WqY0MOWovpvJMfENskoGefLWBAD6C1jDlnBwZRAyjlwb3b8xuwt7TT1Areq_FuXDV77TVarnbfcCWMSdAFqy_haXGCDSBn/s400/TD.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Needless to say, he was swiftly and brutally corrected by everyone else in the room who hadn’t taken their stupid pills that day. Unfortunately, nothing particularly ridiculous happened today and the session passed without anyone making a fool of themselves. Now the term is in full swing and problem classes are a regular occurrence, I’ll do my best to keep everyone posted on anything strange that comes out of them in the forthcoming weeks.</span></div>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-15769740895802009942011-02-01T20:34:00.000+00:002011-02-01T20:34:03.524+00:00An Uneventful Day...<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">I don’t really have too much to write about today. Everything went well for me all told which is excellent for me but alas, somewhat uninteresting for you. I didn’t drop anything, I didn’t break anything, every item of glassware I could think of was available to me, I got everything I wanted done and I still had time for three separate coffee breaks and a gym session! </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Just to put the icing on the cake, my supervisor bought me (and in fact most of the rest of the group) some cheese for a reason known only to him. The French contingent of the lab declined (presumably because eating cheese that was not made in France is the equivalent of chowing down on a handful of gravel to a Frenchman). Of course, I am not someone to turn down free cheese and now have a pretty potent block of Red Leicester taking pride of place in my fridge. Lovely, lovely stuff. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Hopefully someone will do something more interesting/moronic tomorrow so I can write a slightly more lengthy post! Ciao for now.</div>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685224604900439299.post-51773427297198337942011-01-31T21:45:00.002+00:002011-01-31T21:45:53.070+00:00Lundi matin...<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>I spent the weekend with some of my family for the first time since at least Christmas, and a lot longer in some cases. Some “hilarious” quips about how I’m “still a student” and how I don’t have a “real” job were met with the usual disdain from myself because as everyone who has done a PhD knows, you a definitely no longer a student and you get out precisely what you put in. Personally, I’m of the opinion that if I am being paid, then I probably should spend a fairly high proportion of the working week, you know, working. I may not get taxed on my pay, but it’s not like I earn a fortune. Anyway, enough of my ranting and on to my Monday.</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>As I previously mentioned, I was at home for the weekend. I would have travelled back to university yesterday but as the British people among you will know, travelling by train on a Sunday is a monumental error. A two hour train journey during the week would have taken close to four hours last night because part of the train journey had been replaced what I can only imagine was either a moped or a horse and cart. Anyway, I travelled back in rush hour this morning which was highly entertaining. I managed to catch a train chock full of schoolchildren for a solid half of my journey. My phone and mp3 player has run out of battery at this point so I spent an hour listening to inane chatter. Looking back, how I managed to avoid killing someone is quite frankly beyond me.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>I arrived at work around half 10, had a cup of coffee and then planned out my day. “This week will largely involve me making lots of starting materials and thus should move along without a hitch” I thought smugly to myself. How wrong I was. Two literature procedures were planned for today. This involved me essentially following recipes and getting pretty white crystals. I had even done one of them before but this did not stop it being a royal pain. For some reason unbeknownst to be me, it completely failed taking 36 grams of reagent with it and turning it into horrible black oil (never, and I repeat never, a good sign in organic chemistry). The other reaction, after excessive tinkering on my part finally showed signs of progressing just as it dawned on me I had forgotten something. Tonight was the start of the voluntary French lessons I enthusiastically signed up for at some point before Christmas.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>I walked in five minutes late because the Chemistry department lock the front door at half five, a fact that had slipped my mind. I said “Bonjour” to everyone and then proceeded to realise over the course of two hours how much French I had forgotten since I got an A* in French in my GCSE’s eight years ago. This was not the most entertaining two hours I have ever spent; I will tell you that for nothing. Oh well, that’s how the next nine Monday evenings will be spent, so I guess I’m going to have to grit my teeth and get on with it. Oh well, at least I’m not paying for it I guess…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></div>amonkeywithatypewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09723749603101629656noreply@blogger.com2