Second week of work done!
So I'm done my second week of work! YAY! I'm still alive and I haven't broken anything! I think it's safe to say that my first 2 weeks have been a success! I'm starting to know my way around the lab too. I only have to open about 2 drawers insted of all of them to find what I need. One day I'll post a list of all the german chemsitry words I've learned (or rather seen and try to remember). Some of them are pretty funny. Of course I can't remeber any of them now.
I also realise that I haven't talked about my project yet! Well there's not much I can say, because it's very top secret of course. What I can say (I think) is that I'm working on a chronic pain managment program. The chemistry is strait forward enough, but of course it's full of lovely little surprises. And apparently I work too fast. My boss told me the other day to slow down because he couldn't keep strait in his head what I was doing. So this week there was a lot of thumb twirling.
He did however give me one of his synthesises to scale up. I've never worked on a large scale so it was different. One thing I can say about large scale reactions, when something goes wrong, it really goes worng! I started with about 20g of starting material and had to do an oxidation. Well, seemed simple enough, but in the last step, the nice liquid solution turns to mud which then has to be filtered. Now if you think back to when you were a kid and you played with mud outside, what happend when it dried out. Turned to cemement right? Well this is what happend to my reaction! And let me tell you, it's not easy to filter cement! But I got it done! Yay me! Then today I got to use baby Berta to do a flash. So all in all, large scale isn't too bad. The best thing about it, you're never left at the end of a synthesis trying to scrape at least 1mg of product from the bottom of your flash to send for testing!
So besides work, things are going well here in Biberach. I'm still a little lonely (only 84 days till Michael is here!) but I'm starting to get used to it here. Today I even when out to explore! And tomorrow I'm even adventuring out of Biberach and going to Ulm for the day (if it doesn't rain). And then on Sunday I'm going to see The Da Vinci Code with my boss, in ENGLISH! See, I'm starting to come out of my hermit shell... A little.
Anyways, it's late and I'm tierd, so I'll leave you with a few pictures of my lab.
I also realise that I haven't talked about my project yet! Well there's not much I can say, because it's very top secret of course. What I can say (I think) is that I'm working on a chronic pain managment program. The chemistry is strait forward enough, but of course it's full of lovely little surprises. And apparently I work too fast. My boss told me the other day to slow down because he couldn't keep strait in his head what I was doing. So this week there was a lot of thumb twirling.
He did however give me one of his synthesises to scale up. I've never worked on a large scale so it was different. One thing I can say about large scale reactions, when something goes wrong, it really goes worng! I started with about 20g of starting material and had to do an oxidation. Well, seemed simple enough, but in the last step, the nice liquid solution turns to mud which then has to be filtered. Now if you think back to when you were a kid and you played with mud outside, what happend when it dried out. Turned to cemement right? Well this is what happend to my reaction! And let me tell you, it's not easy to filter cement! But I got it done! Yay me! Then today I got to use baby Berta to do a flash. So all in all, large scale isn't too bad. The best thing about it, you're never left at the end of a synthesis trying to scrape at least 1mg of product from the bottom of your flash to send for testing!
So besides work, things are going well here in Biberach. I'm still a little lonely (only 84 days till Michael is here!) but I'm starting to get used to it here. Today I even when out to explore! And tomorrow I'm even adventuring out of Biberach and going to Ulm for the day (if it doesn't rain). And then on Sunday I'm going to see The Da Vinci Code with my boss, in ENGLISH! See, I'm starting to come out of my hermit shell... A little.
Anyways, it's late and I'm tierd, so I'll leave you with a few pictures of my lab.
South gate of Boehringer Ingelheim
The BI duck. There is also a cat that hangs around.
My rotavap. Notice the long tubby thing sticking out of the condenser. It's to suck up your fractions so you dont have to pour them all into the flask at once! Laugh if you must, but I think it's the coolest thing ever!
Baby Berta, you should see mama Berta!
My office that I share with Mark, Barbara and Hilda.
My fume hood, probably the cleanest it will ever be.
posted by kelly | 10:53 PM
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