Elevenses

The past is truly a foreign country.  From the letters to the editor page of Chemistry and Industry, December 19th, 1964 (page 2096):

Ingenuity in the Laboratory

SIR, — In the far-distant days of my youth, I once formed part of a group of young chemists newly recruited to a laboratory in the very early stages of its fitting-out.  The equipment was then so sparse that although well stocked with reagents, the available apparatus lacked those necessities which enter into the brewing of the cup that cheers.  I still remember, oddly enough, that a large weird-looking tripod stand, bearing a rotatable numbered ring, subsequently identified on later arrival of the missing parts as an immersion refractometer, was adapted for use as an exciting roulette and served to mitigate the boredom of our enforced idleness.

The traditional “elevenses” being denied us, youthful ingenuity soon led to the discovery of a satisfactory ersatz assuagement in the form of a mixture of absolute alcohol and ethyl acetate, suitably diluted with a solution of chloroform in water.  Fortunately for us, the arrival of Bunsen burners, flasks, etc. coupled with an official check on the stock of alcohol, soon saved us from premature addiction to the morning cocktail.

Years later, a visit to the U.S.A. during prohibition days gave me the opportunity of vividly recalling the potency and special bouquet of our tipple.

Yours faithfully,

A. DE WAELE

8 Fairgreen Court,

Cockfosters,

Herts.

 

Emphasis mine.  As though breathing solvents isn’t bad enough.

TheChemBlog Archive is Down

It looks like Kyle Finchsigmate’s site has slipped into some unscheduled, scheduled maintenance.  Given that he archived the site in Oct. 2009 it may be a while before he notices, but every post is available through the wayback machine.

Santina Black

It’s time for a confession.  Before last Friday, I had never run a catalytic hydrogenation with palladium (or Pd(OH)₂) on charcoal.  I’ve done reductive aminations, amide couplings, and loads of Huisgen cycloadditions, but have never needed to reduce a pretty little azide to an amine or remove a pesky alkene.

So, before I got started I read up on the “literature.”  A few years ago, Daniel Sejer at the Curly Arrow dissected catalytic hydrogenation over three different blogposts.  The first post details how add the palladium without starting a fire and other fun basics, while the second and third posts are for troubleshooting.  Check out the comments too, for loads of good tips (milkshake shows up each time, brimming with ridiculously good advice). [1]

 

[1] For the human interest angle, I’ve finished the workup and my NMR looks promising.  It’s a crowded spectra, but I’m cautiously optimistic.

Meet the Porcupine

Meet the Porcupine

Our department has a fantastic glassblower on staff, which has given us access to the type of complicated, specialized glassware that costs an arm and a leg.  Of particular note is our NMR cleaning apparatus, which would frankly be out of our reach if we had to order it from Aldrich ($192, act now!).

Unfortunately the tube cleaning apparatus is quite fragile, and I broke it once already, before learning the importance of putting a cap on the base of the NMR tube.  As a type of insurance policy against our glassblower heading to greener pastures for the past few years I’ve kept a couple pages from the now defunct ChemBlog bookmarked.  Ever resourceful, Kyle Finchsigmate’s lab built their own ghetto variant to the glass apparatus out of an old wash bottle, a filtration flask, and a long needle.  Then, on the advice of commenter KNP, Kyle built it again.  And it was beautiful.

The new design calls for a frilled size 24 septa to be fitted into the mouth of the filtration flask, with a long needle stuck backwards through the bottom of the septa.  The top flap of the septa then makes a little reservoir that can be filled with solvent, and suction through the needle pulls the solvent through the tube.  There’s a certain satisfaction in replacing a $200 piece of glassware with a DIY piece of equipment that cost maybe $30 in parts.

(For those less keen on accidentally stabbing themselves with a 12” needle, you can purchase a more reasonably priced glass model from Chemglass.  I’m holding out for the completely impractical 5-channel version though.)