All 5 entries tagged Chemistry

Dammit.

Follow-up to DHP from Wilby's blog

The french journal was lying. Just lying.

I've spent ages on the damn thing. First of all, the reaction didn't only take '30 minutes', it was definitly an over-nighter. Then there was no mention of any work-up necessary, however an excess of one reagent didn't totally consume the other, and I was left with a mess at the end of the reaction.
I fiddled and farted around with the damn thing for ages trying to get it clean. You do fractional distillations in the teaching labs and come to think of them as a magic procedure that renders all liquid products totally pure. No. Not this time. Even despite the beautifully narrow boiling point range of the relevant fraction.
Anyway, I've decided (on the advice of our post-doc) to abandon the damn thing. Going to try a different tactic and a different molecule to achive the same result. This one's really easy to synthesise. Step 1: Order final product direct from Sigma-Aldrich…......

: 13 Oct 2004 00:07 |  Tags: Chemistry |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Visions of Science

Writing about web page http://www.visions-of-science.co.uk/f-2004winners.htm

The winners of the 2004 Visions of Science photography competition have been announced. See the web site for the winning photographs. I rather like the winner in the 'Concepts' catagory, even if it has been coloured using photoshop.

: 11 Oct 2004 10:05 |  Tags: Chemistry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

DHP

Follow-up to Bike Troubles from Wilby's blog

And to make today even worse, I'm currently reading a paper from a journal written in French, which I don't speak, in order that I can do an organic synthesis (shudder).

: 01 Oct 2004 15:43 |  Tags: Chemistry |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Virtual Demonstrator

Follow-up to Chemistry Virtual Lab from Wilby's blog

From discussions with the undergraduate lab techs this morning, it appears that I may end up being the 'virtual demonstrator' in the proposed 'virtual lab'.

"Now children, this is how we use a rotary evaporator.........."

: 16 Jul 2004 12:53 |  Tags: Chemistry |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Chemistry Virtual Lab

Writing about web page http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/elearning/aboutus/results/

Looking at the list of things coming up in the next few months for the e-learning team at warwick, I'm very interested to see the term 'Chemistry Virtual Lab'.

As a chemist myself I'm really interested to know more about what this is. Will I soon be able to do my polymerisations without even leaving my office?.

: 14 Jul 2004 22:48 |  Tags: Chemistry |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem