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Jun. 20th, 2001 05:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moonwiseNot the world's most exciting week. Bossman has been otherwise occupied at a seminar for the last three days, and I've been doing a fair amount of lollygagging. Bad form. Finally got off my ass and did my least favorite lab job, which is...
Quenching the tetrahydrofuran still.
*people look at Arafel strangely*
Okay, okay. Tetrahydrofuran is just a liquid, a solvent we use a lot. We have to make sure it's "dry," or free of water. To do that, we use sodium metal, which reacts very fast with water, and we put the solvent in a big flask with the metal and distill off fresh solvent. The only hitch is - when the still goes bad, there might be bits of active sodium left in there, and you can't let them touch water or you will have a VERY big boom. So, we have to deactivate the metal slowly, and it's harrowing! Takes a long time too.
So... clean out the slop, scrub the glassware, dry it, set it up. Bleah. Then the nice part - putting the still back up. Because... when you put the sodium in the tetrahydrofuran with another chemical, it turns the most beautiful shade of blue you've ever seen. It's like the sky at deep dusk, when the first stars appear.
It's almost worth all the tiptoeing on eggshells to watch that gorgeous color curl up from the bottom of the liquid. If I could, I'd catch it on a paintbrush. *sigh*
*everyone stares*
Oh, knock it off! Yes, chemists are weird. ^_^
Quenching the tetrahydrofuran still.
*people look at Arafel strangely*
Okay, okay. Tetrahydrofuran is just a liquid, a solvent we use a lot. We have to make sure it's "dry," or free of water. To do that, we use sodium metal, which reacts very fast with water, and we put the solvent in a big flask with the metal and distill off fresh solvent. The only hitch is - when the still goes bad, there might be bits of active sodium left in there, and you can't let them touch water or you will have a VERY big boom. So, we have to deactivate the metal slowly, and it's harrowing! Takes a long time too.
So... clean out the slop, scrub the glassware, dry it, set it up. Bleah. Then the nice part - putting the still back up. Because... when you put the sodium in the tetrahydrofuran with another chemical, it turns the most beautiful shade of blue you've ever seen. It's like the sky at deep dusk, when the first stars appear.
It's almost worth all the tiptoeing on eggshells to watch that gorgeous color curl up from the bottom of the liquid. If I could, I'd catch it on a paintbrush. *sigh*
*everyone stares*
Oh, knock it off! Yes, chemists are weird. ^_^
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Date: 2001-06-21 08:20 am (UTC)Yeah I'd be nervous too.. very nervous if I had to do that. I've seen what a tiny piece of sodium in water can do....
Be careful ok ? :)
The blue color sounds wonderful. For ppl who like working in the lab, little things like that make for a pleasing sight. Other ppl wouldn't find it interesting. Chemical do give some very bright and pure looking colors. :)