32 Things you should find in any organic chemist’s hood:
- Stirplates/Hotplates (duh)
- argon/nitrogen tubing
- gas manifold
- bottles of (some of which shall be in squeeze bottles):
- hexanes
- ethyl acetate
- toluene
- DI water
- acetone (for the dishes)
- methanol
- ethyl ether
- picture of david hasselhoff in a labcoat giving the thumbs up
Things you would find in a professional organic chemist’s hood
- Hoses linked by quick disconnects
- schlenk line
- Hotplates with thermoprobes/thermocouples
- Biotage and fraction collector (sharing is LAME)
- picture of you shaking E.J. Corey’s hand while he hands you something
Things you would find in Dean Toste’s hood
- Fear
How many reactions do you generally have going at a time?
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if you have a pic of the ‘hoff in a labcoat with the thumbs up, you have to post it so i can get a copy!
It really should be a picture of you shaking Corey’s hand while you hand him the Woodward-Hoffman rules, I would think.
Also, I think this is the most appropriate blog to ask this–have you (or anyone) heard the Novartis theme song yet? It’s probably the greatest song ever written.
Can you link us to the song (Novartis theme song)? I can see that there is one (via google), but can’t find anymore about it.
I was sent it by a friend… I could upload it somewhere, is that legit? The year on it is 2002, but I’m surprised I never heard of it before now.
Yes that is definitely legit. May I recommend sendspace or yousendit. Both are free.
Why would one find fear in Dean Toste´s hood? I don´t know him therefore I am very curious about it.
Dean Toste is the man.
?
To elaborate, you find the fear of a thousand puny organic chemists that dared to defy him bottled in a Sure-Seal™ container that he uses in catalytic amounts to generate whatever Dean Toste’s infinite wisdom seeks. In 100% yield.
NMR tubes and my crushed dreams top my list.
Also, I will note here that neither of these lists include “reactions.”
Real men do those on the bench top.
Damn straight!
…Wait, I’m not a man…
Real men sloshing with polyaromatic hydrocarbons on their bench die young – they don’t get a chance to spoil their grandchildren and attend funeral of their evil boss.
My prefered way to go would be a car crash at age of 105, caused by driving in opposite direction in one-way street while wearing the reading glasses.
I was actually referring to an undergrad lab course. It’ll be a wonder if any of us who survived it live to see 40…
The only things I habitually do on the benchtop (since finishing the class) are columning and ether extractions.
I would add to this:
-Remnants of your first explosion (as my old PI put it, it’s a badge of honor your hood wears with pride)
-Hello Kitty stirplates
The most abundant material in most fumehoods surely must be junk. In my experience the rule The Better The Chemist The bigger The Mess always holds. (I wonder how these chemcowboys achieve those great yields with all that silica flying around)
I whole lot of unlabelled, unidentified, unquantified stuff that is waiting to be confirmed as product in 100% yeild, completion and purity.
Wha!? No DCM? A squirt bottle of everyone’s favorite chlorinated methane is a staple where I’m from…
Oh man… rack rod, three finger clamps, Variac. No tools no jewels.
I like to do only one thing at the time. So there are usualy no reactions running in my hood because a man has to have his lunch (read blogs, drink tea, gossip with colleagues)
You forgot bottles of stuff you need for extractions. Such as sat. NaHCO3, sat. NH4Cl, 2M HCl, 2-6M NaOH, and of course, saturated NaCl (or brine). Then, you also need a bottle of MgSO4 just for yourself since it’s a pain to go and get it each time, but that can be sitting on a benchtop. The ehtyl acetate I’m not so sure about. If you’ve got ether and acetone, why bother with something that will take longer to evaporate?
I also have small amounts of some mercaptans from a long time ago that I forgot what I used them for, but wouldn’t trust them outside of a hood. However, this isn’t a general thing.
Hexane+Ethyl acetate was engraned in my brains as the first place to start looking for column conditions. It’s silly, since most of my columns are DCM/methanol columns anyway. But, I figure I should start with the stuff that causes the least amounts of cancer and work my way up to the CCl4/Benzene/HMPA column conditions.
For me it was Hexanes + Diethyl ether (which is also not toxic) as the place to start when looking for column conditions. Especially for the long chain, non polar stuff I used to work with. After all, Ethyl Acetate has a higher polarity index and I always like to work up the polarity ladder. Plus I can’t really stand that sweet fruity smell.
If you have the money for CCl4/benzene/HMPA columns, then the insurance money to put you in the best cancer treatment hospital is also available from your group. Just make sure you stay there for a long time until your cancer develops.
Why are grubbs’ olefin cross metathesis reactions done in DCM? Can they be done in chloroform or other non-halogenated solvents?
And is it necessary to run DCM / etc. through a plug of alumina, degass it and then do it all under argon and in an airtight apparatus or is some degree of slop allowed?
Dude, if you were stranded on a desert island with only grubb’s catalyst and your reagents, you could still run the reaction in a cleaved coconut–using the milk or urine as the solvent— and expect a good yield.
So, I don’t need to use dry solvents, evacuate my reaction flask and fill with argon etc.? With both gen 1 and gen 2?
Most procedures i’ve read have you degassing solvent and hermetically sealing reaction vessels to do this shit.
Sorry, i was just joking. I got caught up in a moment of Grubbs worship. Oh, and to correct myself, it’s grubbs’ catalyst.
Nice try, bucko. It’s Grubb’s and don’t you forget it.
slop is allowed with grubbs’ catalyst
…but only if you use lots of it