Anhydrous technique I

I am but a lowly organic chemist - I cannot aspire to the rigour of the synthetic inorganic chemist. Most of my stuff is oxygen tolerant - I have no real need to avoid the Gas of Life.

However, there is a certain technique, Germanic in its origins, a simplification of Schlenk technique - that allows synthetic organic manipulations to be carried out with the peace of mind that nasty interfering nucleophilic water will not be a factor in the success or unsuccess of your reaction. Generally speaking, if you follow this technique, you can rest assured that you are working in conditions that are as anhydrous as you need to be for 99% of synthetic organic chemistry.

NB: Trace water has been known to catalyse certain reactions and indeed in some circumstances is essential for the reaction to proceed, but we usually work on the basis that Water is Bad during the course of the reaction.

Welcome

At long last I've created what some people call a 'tech' blog. A blog about my work: it's rants, it's faves. I didn't think I could write one given the nature of my work and the necessity to keep the 'cool' things under wraps until published, but I think I've found a way.

I am a synthetic organic chemist. I work in a laboratory. I got my PhD at the Australian National University and now I am at the University of Sydney.

This tech blog will be about the itty-bitty little things that will help us labrats in the fumecupboard's lives all the more easier. Things that get left out of the experimental section because either they're considered too trivial, or because they only occurred once so we never bothered to write about them.

Due to the necessity of publishing, chemical structures will be few and far between: this blog will mainly be about lab technique, manipulations - perhaps spectroscopy as well - but that is not my forte.