So my very exciting and very cool result from the other week is alluding being made again. Reproducibility is very important to us scientists. The entirety of the last two weeks has been spent in the lab trying to nail down the variables and get this reaction to work. My nanoparticles playing hard to get. I have to coax and coddle their secrets out of them with a little TLC and attention to detail. I am a little embarrassed it is taking me so long, but I did learn a useful tidbit of info today: even a tiny bit of oxygen is baaaaad. Which means I am going to have to become a super anal retentive chemist and do all my work in the glove box.
If you haven’t seen a glove box before, think of a fridge box on its side made out of metal with a plexi-glass front. Inside is an oxygen and water free haven: a perfect atmosphere of nitrogen gas with only the gentle breeze of the air circulator. On the front are two giant heavy butyl rubber gloves that look like you are about to aid the birthing of a calf. When you stick your hands in those suckers to work inside the glove box, your fingers, instead of the nimble digits they were before, become these blunt clumsy sausages attached to your sweating arms (remember they are covered in butyl rubber), lab coated torso, impatiently tapping feet and an increasingly abusively vocal head. Not only are you clumsy, but glove boxes are notoriously cramped with chemicals, equipment, vials, solvent bottles and forgotten samples. The one I get the pleasure of working in is particularly old, chemical encrusted, crotchety and ill tempered (see pic). Grrr. I hate working in the glove box. But I’ll do it if I have to. The things I do for my nanoparticles. They had better buy me dinner later.
2 comments:
crotchey they might be, you still gotta love them. or at least i do.
we're doing a complete revamp of our small glovebox. new catalyst, new sensors, taking off the plexiglass and scrubbing it out. i am scheduling to be sick on the date planned.
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