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Useful potassium tert-butoxide purification method and a reminder of an old trick for preparing your Grignard reagents 🙂
It’s hard to look back and not wonder what we’ve lost. Organic chemistry is not immune to fickle trends and fashion, and more than one darling of yesteryear lies forgotten in the dusty pages of Tet. Lett. [1]. While I’ve no desire to go back to preparing platonic solids, there’s a few tricks I feel happier to have up my sleeves.
1) Ethylene dibromide/1,2-Dibromoethane is a Grignard Entrainer/Initiator
Grignard reactions are notoriously finicky, which is why they are a standard feature in second-year organic chemistry labs. The key lies in initiating the reactions. Exposure to oxygen leaves a thin film of magnesium oxide on the surface of the metal, which weak bromides are unable to pierce.
Ethylene bromide is far stronger than your average electrophile, and will rapidly clear the magnesium oxide. The product is ethylene gas, allowing both a clear sign that the grignard is proceeding and…
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Interesting news article on Aluminum
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Now on Google Streetview: Newfoundland and St. John’s National Parks and National Historic Sites
You can go check out the North Head Hiking Trail around Signal Hill in St. John’s or visit Cape Spear virtually. All beautiful sites on our doorstep here in St. John’s or nearby.
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If you fancy getting into the Xmas spirit in a Newfoundland style…..why not participate in the annual Mummers Parade/Festival. For more details, check out their website
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The department has an excellent graduate student recruiting page where you can find information on funding etc.
This year NSERC CGS-M applicants are asked to name departments where they would like to conduct research – find out more by following the links on the graduate student recruiting page
NOTE: (a) Successful recipients will receive the Dean’s Excellence Award of $5000 (as ‘top-up’); (b) Candidates must apply to Memorial’s School of Graduate Studies for admission in 2014 (May or September start) by February 1 2014 in order to be considered for one of these awards. The application fee is $50, which Dr. Kerton or Dr. Kozak will reimburse upon your arrive in St. John’s. (c) First round of award announcements will be made on April 1st and acceptance/decline must be made by April 22nd. After April 23rd, further offers may be made if not all awards are accepted.
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We posted this news on our blog a while ago BUT now it is official…..it is on a government of Canada website 🙂 So here is the blurb from the Chemistry department facebook page:
“Congratulations to Marcus Drover, a graduate of the Department of Chemistry at Memorial and currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of British Columbia. Marcus was awarded the prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, which supports his research through a scholarship in the amount of $50,000 per year for 3 years. Only the top 165 applicants across all doctoral programs in Canada are given this award. Marcus began his scientific career as a undergraduate researcher in the Kerton and Thompson labs, where he published 3 peer-reviewed scientific papers in top journals in the field. Details of the announcement are provided here:
http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/47404.html “
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Angela Crane, who was an undergraduate researcher in Dr. Kozak’s group and also participated in ICE, is writing her PhD thesis at UBC but she has found the time to travel and inspire the next generation of scientists in rural BC.
You can find out more about her outreach work by clicking here.
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Students in Engineering and Science receive awards from RDC Newfoundland and Labrador for their research in ocean-related areas. Students in Dr. Kerton’s group have previously received these awards
Green Chemistry @ MUN 