Reike Magnesium (Mg*)

In order to get my Grignard reactions to work even a little bit, I've been heating them considerably. This was fine when I was working in THF, as I would usually heat them to 70 C or so. The bomb flasks I'm using can handle the extra pressure (THF boils at 65 C). Now I'm using diethyl ether as a solvent to prevent activation of the alpha hydrogen in THF; unfortunately this means I'm restricted to lower temperatures. I tried to calculate the pressure I would build up in the flask while heating the ether to 70 C. I didn't get the number exactly, but suffice to say it's more than I'm comfortable with having in my hood. So the next great idea is to lower the required temperature by using "highly activated magnesium powder" also known as Reike Magnesium. (The abbreviation commonly used is Mg*.) This is made simply by reducing Mg-dihalide to elemental magnesium using a strong reductant, usually an alkali metal. The easiest way I can see to make this is to stir up the MgCl2 with potassium metal in THF while refluxing. Potassium melts at a slightly lower temperature than THF boils, so the molten potassium reacts quite easily with the MgCl2.

Rieke Magnesium is called such because Ruben D. Rieke has championed this form of magnesium as a route to generally inaccessable Grignard reactions. He has also commercialized this process, you can see his outfit here if you like. I browsed the website myself, and noticed a little grammatical mistake that I'll now make light of.

Often times my students, and occasionally even my well learned labmates, will do what is called "verbification". (This word actually shows up in several on line dictionaries now, very depressing) That is, they take a noun and use it as a verb to imply action of the noun on a subject in an obvious manner. One of the most common nouns which is subjected to verbification in the lab is "cannula", a long metal tube used to transfer liquids between reactions vessels while excluding the outside atmosphere. Often the transfer process is reffered to by the slur "cannulate". This appears in Rieke's website...

No need for a drybox or a solvent still. Simply cannulate Rieke® Metals in THF into a reaction flask under an atmosphere of argon or nitrogen.

I have been telling my students (and labmates) that "cannulate" is not a word, although you can in fact transfer something using a cannula. I was amused to see this grammatical miscue on a commercial website. Upon further investigation it turns out "cannulate" is actually a word, but it refers to the act of puncturing with a cannula, not transfering a vessel's contents. A near-miss for the author's of Ruben's website, but a miss for sure. As I tell my students quite often while they struggle to pronounce words like meridional, molybdenum, mesitylene; part of being educated is sounding educated.

dealing with English

Where has our fearless blogger been off to? At war with the English language.

After a good solid month of struggling with this paper its finally off to the co-authors. All told there is 30 pages of melt-in-your-mouth scientific jargon and nonsensical tables filled with roman numerals, Greek letters, and some special characters that don't even have names. (This is a lie of course, but few people outside chemistry have reasonable cause to know what an angstrom is or what the symbol for it looks like. Many wouldn't know what an ampersand was if not for "Wheel of Fortune")

More to the point, although the paper has not been accepted it is not in danger of being rejected as was the previous paper I wrote. Now it's just a question of where it will be published after its been reviewed etc. etc. Our first try will be to the Journal of the American Chemical Society, which is the most prominent chemistry journal globally. There are those (mostly Europeans) who may contest that Angewandte Chemie should have that title, but most people I know only publish in Angewandte after JACS has rejected their paper.

Actual publication is still a far way off. I suppose I am at the stage that can be considered "2nd draft". There will be a 3rd draft after the co-authors have their say at which point it will be sent to the journal, which will send it out to referees for peer review. After the referees comment on it (assuming it is accepted) there will be a "1st revision" which will be sent back to the journal. The journal typesets the paper at which point it becomes a "Galley Proof" and then publication.

So it would seem that this particular battle with the English language has been won; however, while writing my own paper I have had to spend a lot of unfortunate time reading written reports for the class that I'm TA'ing. This battle has been largely lost I feel, and not solely because of the ESL students. The native speakers have acquired a keen disregard for all things grammatical and pay no mind to spelling or word choice. I try to focus on the English for the written reports because most of the time, their chemistry is even worse. This exercise has been thoroughly demoralizing. I threw away the standard rubric for a much more holistic grading scheme which consisted of "unacceptable" "needs improvement" and "satisfactory". So far only one student in 30 has received a grade of satisfactory.

With all this done I turn my attention to other matters. We have just received shipment of our new belt-drive vacuum pumps, which means that we can begin setting up the new Schlenk lines. Hopefully this will provide some material for the blog (including pictures for those of you who need some breaks from reading.)

Period Reports

It seems as though I've come to a point in my education when there is an extreme emphasis on writing and not so much on mixing chemical A with B. We've been recently notified that our funding agency is willing to grant us some more money. This is good news. The bad news is that they are holding this money ransom until we turn in our delinquent period report which was due a month ago. Prof. Heller has not told me how much money there is at stake here, but its clear that there is just enough that he's willing to have someone else write the report for him and turn it in, no questions asked. I've written 4 such reports since I've been here (more on the topic of scientific writing later) and it really is a joke. The amount of progress which is actually made on the chemistry is painfully small. The first time I was to write the report I just assumed it was OK to delete the old news and fill in the new results. Not so, I learned, as the funding weinies apparently can notice that the background and strategy sections are the same, so they just assume that you've done no work. Its much more effective to rewrite the entire document even if you provide absolutely no new results with a slightly different word order. The bean counters glance at the document, realize the paragraph sizes have changed, then send off the check. This certainly says something about the capabilities of those who hold the purse strings.

Since I'm not the only one on the budget, these excersices involve compiling the reports of my coworkers. The quality of writing is poor to say the least, partially out of apathy, but mosly out of not being able to effectively communicate. The common public perception of science writing is that it is dry and boring. I categorically agree with this, however, good science writing clearly conveys a message, and boring tediuousness like grammar is essential. It becomes much more tedious when correcting the grammar of others.

I've been request to teach a lab course which carries a writing credit on the undergraduates transcripts for next semester. I'm sure I'll have much more to say on the topic of writing in science after I start to read some of their reports.

A lost muse

I have been trying for weeks to buckle down and write a paper. Its not going well (hence posting to blogger as yet another manifestation of procrastination.) I blame the fact on not being able to find my muse, nevermind that there are no muses for scientific writing. I have settled on trying to locate Clio, muse of history, since I did in fact perform all of these experiments in the past and am now reporting on them. This search for Clio has been starting to wear on Prof. Heller's nerves: a short recent exchange...

The young student approaches the hallowed chambers of the adviser, in an attempt to stay his deadline by feigning misunderstanding of a concept to be discussed in the paper. The point is discussed to exhaustion, and the student makes an unsuccessful break for the door...

Prof. Heller: So... when are you going to have this paper to me?
The Cowardly Procrastinator: Well, its not really in a draft form yet, I need a bit more time for the figures and the introduction is...
Prof. Heller (interupting): Norman Mailer died the other day.
*awkward pause*
TCP: I'm sorry, I don't know who that is exactly.
Prof. Heller: He was a non-fiction novelist. Wrote "The Naked and the Dead". Quite a good author, one of my favorites.
*longer awkward pause*
TCP: I'm not sure what you mean.
Prof. Heller: He was a notoriously slow writer.
TCP: Ok.
*slightl pause*
Prof. Heller: He was very slow, and now he's dead.

The terrified student backs slowly out of the room, not comprehending the exact meaning of the exchange which has just taken place. Safely back at his desk several moments later, two possible meanings come to mind: "Write this paper before you die" or "Write this paper before I kill you" The search for Clio is renewed with vigor.