back in the game

first “official” day of lab research today. winter break wasn’t all too productive…i hadn’t counted on non-reaction supplies running out while the stock room was closed, so i didn’t really have an alternate system of cooling in place for when the liquid nitrogen tank ran dry.

so, i was able to do the final workup step of my first catalyst last thursday, right before classes (a nice, off-white powder, and ~80% yeild, which is nice). today was cleanup and prep day (in between classes), along with a meeting with my advisor. thf was dried/distilled, many nmr tubes were cleaned (aqua regia, 5x water, 2x sodium bicarb, 5x water, then 2x acetone…in other words, long and involved), and the lab in general was worked on. the thf distillation surprised me today – the reflux step, which usually runs overnight, was finished in under an hour. this actually ended up throwing off my schedule for the day (i had planned on setting up and leaving the reflux, and saving the distillation/bubbling/purge-in steps for tomorrow’s lab-day. i need to just resign myself to long days of labwork this semester, especially if i want to finish this project in time.

hopefully later i’ll be able to upload the pictures i took today in the lab; the experiments were being particularly photogenic, and i got some good shots.

here’s the aforementioned photos. sorry for no funny art comments/embelishments…i don’t have my tablet with me.

first, the sodium bicarb. crystals that were growing out of the washbottle:

now, the thf distillation that kept me in lab all day:

~ by scififreaker on 2009.January.14.