It’s that time of SSP where it’s getting more difficult to wake up everyday. Today, I snoozed four alarms before I actually got up and started my day. Let me show you some stuff we did today!
We started off the day by collecting our powdery samples for recrystallization. My powder for this specific complex was a very pretty purplish color.
We dissolve these into vials containing different varieties of solvents, ranging from water to acetone and DMF (dimethylformamide), and other solvents as well! Here is a family picture of all my solutions:
We put the smaller vials containing our dissolved powder into bigger vials containing ether, and then we seal them completely and hope that in a couple days they will grow pretty crystals! Here is my roommate looking at the crystals he got from his complex! Sometimes looking at other people’s crystals makes me a bit jealous…
Afterwards, we had lunch followed by an Inorganic Chemistry lecture. But as soon as we were out, we went to change to welcome our guest speaker! Dr. Christina Li came all the way from Purdue University to talk to us about her research in nanoparticles and controlling the binding geometry and properties of surface-active sites for optimized catalytic reactivity. Everyone seemed to be really interested in her speech, and it was very exciting to see all that she accomplished after her time at SSP!
After having dinner with our guest, we came back to the classroom for a Spectroscopy lecture. We solved NMR challenges between teams, and had a fun time while doing it!
After the lecture, we had to finish up the first drafts of our research paper. It was a long, but fun, time of looking through our data and making sense out of all the decisions and results we got in the lab. We have only about two more weeks to go, and I am excited to continue working with my team through any struggles that we may continue to encounter.
See you soon!
– Jaime
