Two Tries

So this post is dedicated to chemistry and the lab. I am almost done with my first week of being in the lab at KU and it has been quite an experience. I am learning so much everyday and I am starting to become familiar with the techniques. Today my advisor let me do things on my own and let me loose since I had already done everything once. While it was a little tough it was definitely helpful trying to do it on my own without help.

1. Second Reaction: After taking an NMR of my first reaction which we think got lost in the solvent trap over night we found out that it was pretty much a failure. We compared it with the spectrum that my grad student advisor had and they were not the same. So I then started the reaction again but this time with a different solvent. The TLC plates that are used to see how a reaction is progressing were much better today and we saw spots that we were expecting to see but didn't see in the first reaction. I haven't finished purifying it to see if it is the right product, but as of now I am feeling positive about how this reaction has been going.

2. Second Column: We use column chromatography to purify products from starting material and side reactions after we run a reaction. My first column was pretty ugly and I was spilling all over. Since one of our starting products was benzyl bromide I was crying and my eyes were burning for about an hour every time I spilled. Today I packed the column very nicely and I managed to limit the amount spilled during the time when the benzyl bromide was to a few drops so I didn't have any tears or burning sensations. I did get caught doing something else while I was trying to still run the column and I looked over to see the test tube overflowing onto the bench. Unfortunately it was during the time when the pure final product was coming out and so we lost a little bit of our final product. Luckily my advisor just chuckled and told me that it is typical to spill the column when the product is coming out.

Sometimes I like to think that Jesus was a chemists, especially since both with chemistry and forgiveness involve a lot of second, and third, and forth chances...