Notices by SellaTheChemist (sellathechemist@mastodon.social)

@botvolution It's a reduced titanocene. You mix two spatula tips of red titanocene dichloride with one spatula tip of zinc in dry toluene under nitrogen. You then stir it for a day or so and the solution gradually goes green as the zinc dissolves, throwing its two electrons at two titaniums. The result is a beautiful deep green trimetallic complex that is very sensitive indeed. You put a spot down and wait for the solvent to evaporate. If it stays green you're set! If it discolours… #sigh

#Glovebox purged with 100 bar (7 m3 of nitrogen). Now the catalyst is heating up waiting for its nitrogen/hydrogen feed to reduce it down and activate it. We might have a working box by morning.

And then the shite jihad will begin. Time to clear out a lot of ancient samples and abandoned schlenks. There's a fair bit of rather manky white phosphorus and alkali metal in there so there may be some fun to be had…  #chemistry #academiclife

After multiple vicissitudes the correct replacement circuit breaker for my #glovebox has finally arrived. When it was installed, the blower that runs the recirculation in my glove box came back to life. 🍾🍾🍾 So now I need to purge the box with a cylinder of nitrogen and regenerate the catalyst which I have completely replaced. It's been a 2 ½ month emotional roller coaster. Fingers crossed we'll have the atmosphere down around 5 ppm O2 before the end of the week. #chemistry #academiclife

Saturday. My glove box remains dead after a mysterious cockup while I was on holiday that caused one glove to be torn and the catalyst to sinter into multicoloured lumps. It doesn't get much worse than that!

But after several abortive attempts to fix things, I woke up at 02;30 in a cold sweat about it. And then a possible solution dawned. So, back to the lab to try it out.
That glovebox has run for 30 years on the same catalyst. I'd hate to lose it. #chemistry #InInsomniaConsilio

And so my glove is is undead!! Atmosphere well below 5 ppm of oxygen. Now the cleanup begins.

The spots are a very sensitive organometallic compound used as an indicator. Green is good. Orange is baaaaaad. #chemistry #academiclife

#GloveBox Saga. So the regeneration cycle is on for the catalyst on my #glovebox. Because I'm out of town I've got a couple of students primed to take photographs of solenoid valves to see whether the lights go on in the right order and whether when VRE opens the gas actually flow. If the light is on but gas doesn't flow then it's back to ordering another replacement part. How many weeks might that take? #sigh #chemistry #academiclife

I return to my #glovebox to discover that the catalyst heated but the gas did not flow through at all - the flow rate seemed correctly set at the start. Does this mean that there's a deeper problem still lurking?

A whole day wasted. I'll have to try again tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

@quinn Always talk. Had lunch with a bunch of elderly climate deniers yesterday. Lot of talk. Food too.

@quinn Indeed. You might also check if they’re from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and perhaps Moldova as well while you’re at it. And then stfu.

@ianRobinson The last couple of weeks - it''s towards the back in teh Educayshon news. Or the High Principals column.
If I remember correctly its along the inner margin on a right hand page. #psychogeography #reading.

Question for UK academics: does anyone have a photo of the recent Private Eye column "High Principals" or "Educayshon News" about the SEAtS app? There's a lot of discussion about it and I've lost my copy of #PrivateEye

If there are any chemists or medical imaging people around here, you migth want to read this… Trigger warning: you may need a spare set of undergarments by the time you get to Para 44. https://neuromatch.social/@jonny/113217968407664714

The word "seems" is doing a lot of work here, warding off the lawyers.

Oh. Just heard a new version of the old malapropism on the radio. "There are people who mitigate between… " So there are three words to be muddled: militate, mitigate and mediate. Does anyone have any others to add to this list?

@rmathematicus Are you telling me that people "meditate against oppression…"?

@cbarbermd Unless you are over 60 in which case in the UK you don’t pay for prescribed drugs at all.

Fuck you, Andrew Wakefield! And fuck you to all the influencers who've grown fat on the misery they cause and will cause.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/14/measles-outbreak-risk-london-uk-health-security-agency-mmr-vaccine-take-up

@MikeFromLFE we are programmed and destined to discount things we don’t experience. And we forget in a generation. Sometimes less. Often led by dangerous fools who object to regulations. Regulations are always the result of something nasty to someone. As, I think @rosamundi said the other day “Safety rules are written in blood”.

Today is UN Day.

It is fashionable to say that the UN is useless. That it is broken. That it needs reform.

But I want you to read Antonio Guterres statement in the Security Council today. This is the moral clarity we need in a grim grim time. And some are calling for him to resign. Disgraceful people. Disgraceful.
https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/speeches/2023-10-24/secretary-generals-remarks-the-security-council-the-middle-east%C2%A0

Science is about problem-solving. And generally your ability to do science is limited by your budget. Here is a remarkably ingenious solution to the problem of how to move a superconducting magnet without having to warm it up, or call a very expensive moving company to do the job for you. Enjoy. #NMR #bacon #speck