been a while…
so, my laptop bit the big one a while back (as in it got virus-ed to death) and had to be re-imaged, thus leading me to completely forget about the blog for about 3 weeks or so (i’m not sure, and i’m too lazy to check). i’ve now two and a half weeks left in my summer research, and have only just started actually working with the metal that was to be the focus of the project. it’s an odd color, but my advisor assures me that the color will come out when i filter it through celite.
nothing too exciting has happened, other than afternoon thunderstorms for the past two weeks or so. one time the power in the building actually went out for about an hour (but after the storm had ended, oddly enough. it was crazy, and i was getting paranoid about the glovebox getting compromised (it was okay). didn’t help that it happened during the week when our advisor was away at a conference.
i’m procrastinating now on filtering the reaction i have going. i guess i can filter now, and let it evaporate while i go to lunch (and probably for the rest of the day).
Edit (06.19.08, 3:24pm):
ok, filtered it and started evaporating off the toluene a few hours ago. no dice – the color stayed. as we don’t have any more frits of the right size inside the box, and the frits can’t be flame-dried, i have to wait several hours (i’m gonna save it for tomorrow to make sure the things are water-free) in order to bring the frits into the box so i can re-filter the solution. in the meanwhile, i’m trying to reduce the volume so it’s easier to work with later – less solvent to get rid of after filtration.
i have a feeling that the toluene we’re using has been compromised somehow…all of my experiments have gone wonky whenever we use it. i think my next step tomorrow will be to distill some to bring into the box… just gotta clean out the distillation set-up already in the hood so i can get ready tomorrow.
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