Chem General

>Should I take analytical as well?
at least in my uni, this is compulsory, and before pchem we had to take maths

besides analytical, try inorganic, and spectroscopy

i also came from bio (mol bio to be exact), so im gonna have to either take an extra year for some courses, colloids and stuff, or take basic colloidal chem during the masters (necessary for a pchem msc)

Why do you want a MSc in Chemistry? In the US at least, getting a masters in chemistry is almost looked down upon since it's mainly a degree awarded to people who dropped out of the PhD program.

Also, if you're not getting a PhD then analytical probably isn't nearly as important. Definitely take inorganic though.

Weird here in Germany you don't do a PhD without a MSc

in europe, most of it at least, you cant do a phd without a msc

its an american thing going straight from a bsc to the phd. not to mention their bsc are 4 yrs compared to the 3 of europe

Oh ok, didn't konw that.

So now in general, what do we want to discuss in our glorious chem general? Funny/weird lab stories? Most dangerous situations we were in regarding chemistry? Home labs?

I'll start with one of our scientific associates:
>working on doctorate
>disregarding safety protocols and working alone at night
>has an ether as solvent
>doesn't test solvent for peroxides
>uses rotary evaporator to evaporate said solvent
>fidgets around with it, while under vacuum
>BOOM
>three fingers blown off
>doesn't hit fire alarm or anything, instead goes to stair well and screams for help
>loss of blood leeds to unconsciousness
>falls over railing 3m to the ground
>gets found by chance 2 hours later, barely survives
>now stalks the building in a constant bad mood looking for the slightest infraction, to be able to scream at people, everbody starting to study chem gets warned about the crazy guy missing 3 fingers

sounds like a fucking retarded version of Dr Doom

holy shit.
>fidgets around with it, while under vacuum
fucking DUMBASS

Haha fucking topkek

Good job mate

Sounds good man, if I can get into one before the semester starts, I definitely will, they're all full right now. Seeing the titration meme pic earlier in the thread reminded me that I'm not the most precise/I'm somewhat error-prone in lab, so I think it'd definitely help before getting into graduate research.

I have the math down for p chem (well, I took the required courses a few years back and I got a copy of Mortimer's 'Math for PChem' and am working through it now, so I think I should be alright). Spectroscopy requires this analytical class as a prereq, so need to go ahead and take it anyway, and for inorganic, they want you to have p chem I and II, so will take as a grad. The prof I know here (it's a state school) is a purely undergrad organic one, and both he and the grad coordinator said that I'd really only need biochem and physical I to be on a level playing field with most entering MSc students.

Was a pre-med/bio student in undergrad, realized I don't really want to do that right now, need a few years before I go to med school. I don't have the resume/any research experience/anything really to make me a PhD candidate and I don't know if I want to put myself through that right now, so I figure this MSc is a good way to explore and learn a little more (plus tuition is subsidized if you teach during it) and after it I can decide on med school or a PhD or even MD/PhD.

Overall, I know I like organic, but from reading other posts on Veeky Forums I've heard mixed things about it, although obviously that goes with a grain of salt, but I'm just trying to get some more exposure into chem and go from there. Thanks for the pointers so far guys.

I went to high-school in New Zealand and it was the same there, and basically everywhere that's not the US and maybe Canada.

I'm still curious why you would want to get a MS though without intending to stay on and get a PhD. Is there any benefit at all to just getting the masters?

My bad, just saw If you are potentially interested in the PhD definitely do analytical since that's what most of what being a graduate student in a lab is actually like. I assume you took organic lab too?

Yeah, it's been so long (3 years) and I didn't do so well the first time (my overall organic knowledge was shaky then, was a typical premed wrt organic, then I retook the lecture with this prof over the next summer rather than at my home institution and now organic makes sense and I want to pursue it more) that I figure if I'm going into organic that I might as well retake the lab for Organic II, esp since that's where you get more into synthesis and they offer a concentrated half-semester version here, so will knock it out in the first half of the semester. Will hopefully get solid reccs from these profs and get into the MSc no problem.

>Was a pre-med/bio student in undergrad, realized I don't really want to do that right now, need a few years before I go to med school. I don't have the resume/any research experience/anything really to make me a PhD candidate and I don't know if I want to put myself through that right now, so I figure this MSc is a good way to explore and learn a little more (plus tuition is subsidized if you teach during it) and after it I can decide on med school or a PhD or even MD/PhD.
i didnt either, i went straight from undergrad to PhD with 0 outside research, only 1 semesters worth of undergrad research, and it was a joke honestly, especially with the facilities/instruments we have. but i put it on my CV

Dang man, congrats, that's awesome. I don't doubt it's possible, but I really just don't want to throw myself completely into the deep end/really commit myself to it without knowing it's something I want. Like I looked at some nicer PhD programs in the area and some let you skip some coursework if you come in with a certain number of graduate credits beforehand, so it's not like the MSc time would be wasted anyway.

oh ok, just didnt want you to think it wasnt possible, my transcript was garbage too (3 transcripts had to be sent).
> I really just don't want to throw myself completely into the deep end/really commit myself to it without knowing it's something I want.
really smart. im looking at being a slave for 5 years, but i wholeheartedly welcome it, this is infinitely better than where i was when i dropped out of undergrad. But yea, definitely be interested before committing. The masters certainly wont be a waste of time but it may expose you to more industry routes, which are great if you care about earning power, but tons of my friends regret so hard either stopping at masters or mastering out of their PhD programs.

Awesome man, thanks :) Yeah, earning power is definitely a consideration, which is a part of why I'm still considering med school after this, but, like, undergrad was so uninspired for me that this new route is something I want to ride as far as I can. So have you started yet, or are you about to start the program?

Starting in 3 weeks, i graduated this may. I wouldnt even consider this at all unless i was actually interested in the subject. I actually was pre-med before and have no doubt i COULD do it, but was exposed to the environment and it was not for me, im too introverted and hate people too much. Plus money is not really an issue for me, i graduated with no debt, have no desire for a family until im done with PhD, and refused to go into debt for education (although, having graduated now, my opinion on that has changed).

Sounds fairly similar to me. Graduated last May, spent some time around one of those postbacc programs where the students take some classes with first year med students and can get a guaranteed interview and all that. I realized after that time that I'm not at a stage where I just want to be memorizing things. So figured I should find something where I can do some research and be a little more open-ended and learning for the sake of learning/to further my interests, rather than memorizing just to pass an exam every week. Anyway, do you know what you want to do it in/how much chem did you have in undergrad?

> I realized after that time that I'm not at a stage where I just want to be memorizing things
oh god, this too. Like i can memorize stuff that matters to me, like the TCA cycle or protein cascade pathways, but medical memorization just feels absolutely arbitrary, and i would 100% want to take latin before even trying, i have no reference without it!
> Anyway, do you know what you want to do it in/how much chem did you have in undergrad?
no i really dont, the program is extremely open ended, especially for BC, from pure chem to pure bio and even biostats. The lab im currently most interested in is working with auto-immune contraception and a specific viral biosensor, but really im very open. I love chemistry, more than bio, but need to apply it to living things to derive personal satisfaction from it.
classes: chem 1 and 2, organic 1 and 2, quantitative analysis, biochemistry and 2. All A's except for quant, B because the labs were graded off accuracy/precision, and i er... compromised an experiment. But im very lacking in chemistry, no p chem, inorganic, advanced organic (which i really wanted to take)

what the fuck is that stand & clamp? That's some poo tier shit

> i would 100% want to take latin before even trying, i have no reference without it!
the main class the postbacc was centered around was gross anatomy. I pretty much double majored in Latin in undergrad (had taken in high school and really enjoyed it), it honestly didn't help that much. Maybe Latin just comes easy to me, but I felt that knowing it really didn't help with memorizing any structures at all, especially since it just seems to be a few key words you need to memorize as opposed to the ones that are pretty recognizable in English (e.g. 'brevis' is short vs. 'longus' is long)

>no i really dont, the program is extremely open ended, especially for BC, from pure chem to pure bio and even biostats. The lab im currently most interested in is working with auto-immune contraception and a specific viral biosensor, but really im very open. I love chemistry, more than bio, but need to apply it to living things to derive personal satisfaction from it.
That's good that you have so many options with it. That's what I noticed about all the class options with this program, is that I'm really excited to take most of them which is a welcome change when I think back to slogging through something like evolutionary bio.

>But im very lacking in chemistry, no p chem, inorganic, advanced organic (which i really wanted to take)
P chem is the one I'm worried about right now, have about a month to go until it starts. I've just been trying to find the right book to work through in terms of math, I'm between 'Maths for P Chem' by Mortimer and I literally just found Steiner's 'The Chem Maths Book' and it seems more in depth. Our class is going to be using Engel/Reid as our actual book and it's supposed to be a lousy book, so looking at McQuarrie now and it's pretty dense, but it's supposed to be the best. Also enrolled in Coursera's 'P Chem I' offered by U of Manchester just to have another option. I know people say to just stick to one source, but I know I need a lot.

yea P chem is pretty notorious, i sat in a couple of their classes since i was good friends with all the chem majors/professors and it went completely over my head. But knowing the people in the class, it's definitely approachable, like they werent geniuses or prodigies by any means, i just walked into the middle of a concept already established. That's really good your doing your own research, that's a good sign that you're in the right field and stuff, just being excited to learn. Man i wish my program started tomorrow, im so sick of waiting, this whole summer ive done nothing but random amateur experiments, read books and the odd article here and there, and play video games (which dont really interest me anymore sigh).

Just found this as well, if you're just looking for some ppts to flip through butane.chem.illinois.edu/sohirata/
Is there anything going on at your campus right now? Any classes or anything that you could just go so you're already around it? That's the other main thing I'm trying to figure out for this semester is research, since I've never really done it. I'd like to ideally start in the lab that I do my masters in, just to get an unofficial head-start on thesis stuff, but I guess, due to my relative inexperience with chem, not 100% sure what I want to go and tackle.

>No Chem General
Chem? You mean the quantum mechanics of molecules?

thanks for the link, ill probably just glance through it though, my last year was only biochemistry and a ton of specific biologies so it may just go over my head. Unfortunately im not at my campus yet, my housing begins in the middle of august, so i have no where to go if i drove up there. but also i want to spend as much time here as possible with friends and family, i know i would regret going up earlier. Don't worry too much about research, except maybe KEEP A GOOD NOTEBOOK! never forget, write everything down, date everything, mention every little detail, it will help. also keep everything, this has saved my ass in a cancer research project when i kept cell pellets and forgot to add SDS to a lysis buffer....

asking for a friend

chemical engineer here working on a report for my internship. Part of the task was to conduct a literature review to best ascertain potential zinc precipitates that would result from dissolution in 4400 ppm boric acid solutions at about 250F with subsequent cooling to 80F. Also of concern are potential precipitates that could result from interactions with buffering agents (chiefly NaOH, and sodium tetraborate) that would change the solution pH from 4.1 (boric acid solution) to a ph of 8 or 12.

Any ideas on where to start?

Gotcha man. Hope you enjoy your time at home before you get started there. Honestly, the biggest thing I'm trying to figure out is just which lab to go into. The department has a booklet that lists each research prof and what they do, the undergrad director who's helping to guide me told me to read a bit of each of their work and try and figure out what interests me and that was like two weeks ago and I've read through some of it and not really seeing anything that I wouldn't want to do, so just chalking that up to my overall inexperience and trying to figure out a time to meet with him again (been putting it off because I feel like I should've narrowed it down some) to move forward in contacting them, since my story and chem experience is a bit convoluted, so I want his help on how to best word my emails to them to maximize my chances of getting into a lab.

Is this correct?

thermodynamically favorable reactions (pH=0):
O2 has the capability of forcing Cu to become Cu2+
O2 has the potential to oxidise Cu to Cu2+
Cu can reduce O2 to H2O
Cu2+ has the capability of forcing H2 to become H2O
Cu2+ has the potential to oxidise H2 to H2O
H2 can reduce Cu2+ to Cu

electrodes and batteries (pH=0):
An electrolytic precipitation of copper can be carried out, applying a potential lower than the equilibrium of the Cu2 + / Cu (

HOMO- LUMO heh

bump im just a dumb engineer please someone point me in the correct direction

start with putting that in proper units

>dissolution
Dissolution of what and of how much?
>250F
In non-engineer units?

>Is there any benefit at all to just getting the masters?

i guess in a general sense, if you were to pursue a career in analytical chemistry, a bsc+msc would suffice?

first job interview tomorrow. how do dress for a lab job as bachelor? jeans/shirt/jacket?

for anons in the industry, what are some applications you see with electrochem? Thinking of taking a course on electrochemical methods but wondering if I'll ever see it or not

open toed shoes, a kilt, prescription contact lenses, and a wife-beater.
sorry couldnt help myself, yea, just be presentable, i would change jeans to a nice pair of slacks, maybe a button down shirt, no jacket, no tie.

dissolution of metallic zinc, specifically from the surface of galvanized steel

the westinghouse document is written using fahrenheit so I will follow suit

FULL TUX, TOP hAT

>go to one of the top unis for chem in my country
>maths is piss easy
>self teaching set theory and complex analysis over the summer to have even a tiny chance to join the physics quantum group for master's research project
>feelsbadman.png

Went pretty shitty i guess. if anyone cares. their lab was complete chaos. theyll let me know in a month lol. at least i stole a pen.

Well sorry about that, but I guess that happens, when you go in open toed shoes, a kilt, prescription contact lenses, and a wife-beater.

I went with the Tux/top hat setup.

But I bet you forgot the monocle...

their loss

>rotary evaporator
>under vacuum

why would a vacuum explode?

>>BOOM
>>three fingers blown off

I'm now imagining a spinning flask and him getting the clamp caught on a mount or something shattering the flask and having rotating glass knives spin through his fingers.

Pls explain this exploding vacuum

>you to have p chem I and II, so will take as a grad.
i had to take pchem as a junior ?

different schools/reqs, I guess. I'm coming in as a non-chem major from another school, so they just want me to cover as much as I can before entering the masters program. Will be taking p chem I as a postbacc this semester and then will go from there.

>Pls explain this exploding vacuum
He had an ether (probably dioxane, not sure what exactly) as a solvent. This solvent was old and contained organo-peroxides (which form in ethers when not stored properly, so always check!!!). He attached his solution to the rot.evap.(dunno how english speakers abreviate it, I mostly only know German terms) and it evaporated the "normal" ether. This led to a build up of the higher boiling organo-peroxides, which concentrated in the original solution flask. When he tampered with the original flask, with the high organo-peroxides in it, the shock sensitive organo-peroxides exploded(thats kinda that they do), regardless of the vacuum, the shock wave and shrapnell lit. blew his fingers off, no spinning involved.

I hope that was detailed enough, and you understand know.

Oh I just realized:
>why would a vacuum explode?
Vacuum implosions can be pretty dangerous as well, but I doubt, that you spent much time in a lab, otherwise you would know.

>predicting organic reactions with QM
I hope you enjoy your Nobel prize, user.

Not quite in industry but from talking to electrochem phds it's basically all about making batteries. Can be lucrative but not particularly exciting.

what's the most wizardly shit you've done at the lab

an absolutely perfect titration, calculated perfectly.

sweet heavens

anybody given simulation theory any thought?

Need help
Im finishing my chemistry course at the uni but I have no idea of what area or specific topic i should research... i guess i need some motivation

lipid self assembly

my dad says chemicals give your dick the chicken pox. I dont want it to itch when i rub it but i want chemicals. Wat do?

what did you enjoy studying?

Can we talk about home labs? Bit difficult for me in Texas due to regulations on fucking Erlenmeyer flasks, but either way, I'm thinking of setting up a home lab. Tips?

er... what regulations... are you talking about user....? should i be worried? also what are you hoping to do, just random synthesis?

If you hold for a moment I can find the penal code. They must be registered and your house searched with a 21 day waiting period. You must register with the Department of Public Safety to buy, sell, or transfer various "drug paraphernalia" which, funnily enough, includes the Erlenmeyer flask. And yes, random synthesis would just about sum it.

Found it. dps.texas.gov/RSD/Precursor/Laws/ Damn war on science.

holy fucking shit user. What the fuck. what the fuck. what the fuck. I TA'd for 2 years in undergrad and built a nice collection of shit a professor let me take home (old shit). she must not have known either... but i have at least half the shit on that apparatus list, and a couple of the precursors. What do i do now, try and register them or just dispose...

Hide that shit. And by hide, I mean whatever you may have left save for flasks (no one's actually gonna fuck you over an Erlenmeyer) and bury that shit in as secure and leak-free as possible bag. I know we typically don't encourage illegal shit, but you will more than likely be fucked if you're anything than an exactly average white 20-30 y/o guy. Make sure that shit can't be found. Bury then in different spots, and if there's a creek nearby, I feel bad for saying this but, dump that shit. Wear black/camo, keep your head down. I'm not talking about a public one, I'm talking seceded in the woods where the meth heads go to smoke. Just my suggestion, seeing as anything else would land you a drug charge.

And super don't dispose of them properly. They typically register that too, and if anyone important finds out, drug charge. Try and do as little environmental damage as possible, and if you have to, do it as stealthily as possible.

man god damn it. I almost wish i didnt read what you fucking wrote but obviously yes i needed to. I am a 20-30 year old caucasian, and in industry, but yea, still, i think i should just dump em, most of it is really old/stained anyways. my distillation tube though... :(

Do you look like a meth head? How is your health? And if you work in the industry it may be easier to perhaps dispose at work.

Oh god no, i may appear slightly out of place sometimes because of attire but no, im always very presentable. Health is good, no issues at all, no medications, nothing.
Im not worried about disposal really. I figure if i put all in a random dumpster after smashing it on my property, how would it ever be traced back to me, assuming there are no cameras? I did that with my old highschool bongs back in the day lol

Perhaps it wouldn't be. I was suggesting extremes

Go on Science Madness forum, it's got heaps of info. I'm just starting to learn me some chemistry at the moment.

Some things I've learnt so far:
>keep a detailed journal in case you get raided by da po-po
>if you order glassware from China, you could get a visit from da po-po
>anything involved in the production of meth will get you a visit from da po-po
>"""real""" chemists are a bunch of snobs who advocate ratting people out to da po-po
>you're a meth cook unless proven innocent

Nobody tests Et2O or THF for peroxides when using it as solvent all the time. We've had a THF explosion once but it was distilled instead of the BHT stabilised one straight from the can.

Two days ago I had 14 grams of dirty brown foamy crap which was about 80% pure new medicinedrug. I wanted to purify it by prep reversed phase chromatography so I dissolved it in ACN (went surprizingly well, like a gram per mL). Then I ultrasonicated it to dissolve final bits and all of my shit came crashing out as nice perfectly white powder with 97% purity. Another recrystallisation from acetonitrile/water and it was 99.6%. Saved me a lot of columns and time, it's great.

I'm not exactly sure which solvent it was, I think dioxane (and I've always tested that before use)

I use diphenylacetic acid to titrate my n-BuLi. At the equivalence point it becomes a persistent yellow after all the acid is deprotonated. Anyone knows what happens after that to make it yellow? Is the middle carbon (with the two phenyls) the one that gets deprotonated? And would it resonate across the rings and the carboxylic acid a lot or would just that anion be the major form?

No, the COOH group is deprotonated. Yellow is probably the colour of lithium diphenylacetate in solution.

You are wrong and is right, the way that the titration works is that one equivalent of organolithium is consumed by deprotonating the carboxylate, and after that the benzylic proton gets removed, generating a delocalised dianion with the yellow colour.

Of course it gets deprotonated, but the yellow colour only happens after 1 equivalent, before that it's colourless, so there must be a second deprotonation happening. If you add a lot it gets dark as hell.
I'll make a video demonstrating it soon.

Yes I suspected this, but my question is if it's really delocalized and resonates all over the rings and maybe the COO- or if the benzylic anion itself is the dominant species.

>if the benzylic anion itself is the dominant species

That proton is less acidic than the carboxylate proton.

As for whether it's delocalised, why wouldn't it be? The colour is evidence of the fact that the electronic system is delocalised because it's absorbing light at longer wavelengths i.e. in the visible spectrum.

Cool thanks, I tought so but wanted to make sure.

What do chemists do that physicist can't?

inb4getjobs

kek, lumo means enchantment in finnish
gay-enchantment :DDDD

Basically anything to do with chemistry ie the breaking and forming of chemical bonds. You could argue intermolecular shizzle in liquids can be analyzed as liquid physics so thats okay but physicists just dont have knowledge or the understanding chemists do necessary for understanding how molecules could and should work.

What can I research in Grad school that will translate to working in industry? Polymers? Organometallics? Catalysis?

check and see what the job sites say

get jobs

check pubs.acs.org and see what kind of papers are being published

get wimminz