Pictures from an Organic Chemistry Laboratory

I am an undergraduate at CSULA and I work in a organic research lab. During high school I HATED chemistry. I think this was because of a lack of hands on experience. It is my hope that uploading these pictures will give a glimpse of how fun chemistry really is!

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Another picture of the chromatotron. :)

[organicchemistrylab]

This piece of equipment (chromatotron) separates a mixture of compounds. We load the sample from the center and while the disk spins it separates the different compounds into the black rings you see.

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Everyone knows oil doesn't mix with water. In chemistry we also use this to purify our compounds! The top layer is oily/non-polar (ethyl acetate) while the bottom is water/DMSO. My product should be oily so it should go in the top layer!

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Added excess base to make the amine into free base form. It is hard to see from this picture but there is a deep purple tinge to it. Beautiful!

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Urg, left reaction overnight to come back to this. Looks disgusting!!! It doesn't mean that the reaction went bad though!

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Just added the yellow solution to the clear very slowly. It hasn't completely reacted yet though. Going to leave it over night and see what happens :)

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Redoing the "orange pop" reaction. Here is what I am reacting together. This time I am making it a different way that should give me higher yields.

[organicchemistrylab]

Ahh, I messed up the reaction! I could have salvaged it, but it would be more time and money efficient to start over. Still looks cool!

[organicchemistrylab]

Rotovapped (evaporated the solvent) of the orange pop reaction. Looks like Jupiter!

[organicchemistrylab]

I am synthesizing some orange pop/soda! I actually am making a compound that when attached to an antibacterial drug we are making, will fluoresce. This will be useful when testing if the drug goes inside of the bacteria, stays on the cell wall, or doesn't attach at all!