I don’t know much about this, but I can’t help but think that “complete” and “consistent” are doing a lot more work in that sentence than my current understanding of the terms would lead me to believe.

and get rid of my one kitchen crutch? absolutely not

I know that this is partially a joke, but I was trying to figure out what kind of lab would be done to produce chloroform that would be appropriate for students (recent OSHA crackdown on chloromethanes notwithstanding)… haloform reaction I suppose? Is that a common teaching lab experiment?

My mom took my little brother to participate in a child psych study like this when he was a toddler (mom had some ties to the university). It was a very similar experiment with skittles as the prize. My brother sat staring glumly at the candy the whole time. The test administrator was increasingly enthusastic with praise after each round right up until the end when she congratulated him and said that he could have the whole bag. He said “no thanks” and ran back to mom crying because he was told there would be candy but they only had skittles, which he very much did not like (and for that matter still doesn’t). The administrator was apparently embarrassed and told my mom that she thought that all kids liked skittles…

^{dontthinkaboutitdontthinkaboutitdontthinkaboutit}

According to my buddy who worked for Dow, part of these “savings” apparently was taking a hatchet to their R&D segment with a bunch of spray-and-pray layoffs (apparently a common happening these days). I realize Dow is mostly commodity chemicals these days which is much more preservative in nature than other segments of the chemical industry, but even so it sounds like they are killing any hope of competing with new technologies and moving to the “squeeze as much as possible out before it goes tits up” stage.

A bunch of electrons? Nah F only ever wants just one more than its natural allotment. But it is extremely, violently jealous of that electron.

Apparently this particular catalyst is pitched as an H2 evolution catalyst by oxidizing alcohols… can anyone with access to the article tell me where that energy comes from (thermo- or electrocatalytic)? IIRC alcohol dehydrogenation is endothermic by like 15-20 kcal/mol. A 1->2 reaction has an entropy change of ~30 eu, so quick math and dirty looks from p-chemists gives an operating temperature somewhere around 300 °C. That’s quite a bit better than conventional crackers but still requires significant thermal encouragement…

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Shit title and lead from MIT news but interesting work from Yogi (original article). Short technical summary based on the abstract: electrochemical measurements suggest that, in the production of vinyl acetate monomer (VAM), the solid palladium catalyst corrodes slightly, and the corrosion product is what combines ethylene and acetic acid to form VAM while simultaneously redepositing onto the surface.

I’ll need to go back and read the Science article properly once I can get access, but that’s not going to stop me from giving my 2¢ on a shaky foundation. One thing that is unclear to me is exactly what form the corroded palladium acetate takes, and whether it truly leaves the bulk Pd surface. It seems unlikely to me that the Pd(OAc)2 would become properly “homogeneous” in the conventional sense, especially since VAM production is usually gas-phase (though that might just be my lack of familiarity with systems in these temperature regimes). I suppose there could be some kind of extremely thin interface region like you see around an electrode in electrochemistry (after all, this is Yogi’s group). Fast reduction might prevent the corroded Pd from being carried away by the gas stream, but I certainly wouldn’t call Pd in that region “homogeneous” (though it might be “molecular”). On the other hand, if the Pd(OAc)2 doesn’t really leave the surface, then I would say that framing by even the study’s authors is overblown; hetcats gain and lose surface ligands all the time.

If it was an x-ray, isn’t it a little weird to use a radioactive probe (or contrast agent)? I thought that for GI things it is usually a just contrast agent that absorbs x-rays really well… barium or some shit.

If I stood up straight, my eye level was above the window. Also, glove boxes. The shorter group members could use platforms to raise their height but had trouble reaching the corners, while I had to do a mix of taking an uncomfortably wide stance and slouching. I wish they had been more suitable for my height… I thought everything would be better with taller hoods in my current workplace, but all they did was extend the sash to the floor.

If those undergrads could figure out how to turn acetone into TNT…

Amateurs. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetone_peroxide

EHS would raise hell if they caught us putting waste solvent in anything but a hazardous waste container…

What a coincidence, the end of my support for windows is also approaching.

jk I scrubbed that shit from my personal devices years ago after graduating.

later?

Hey look, it’s a kürzlich aufgebauter vom Aufbauprinzip verbauter Bau

Edit: also, the configuration is referring to silver for those curious. Not my first choice, but whatever floats OP’s boat (Baute?) I suppose.

The intended joke is that hypervalent iodine compounds like Dess-Martin periodinane flip between different oxidation states like you often see for transition metals. As an example, the mechanism usually drawn for oxidations by DMP is similar to those drawn for PCC/Jones reagent, where the electrons removed from the substrate are “banked” at the metal center. Obviously, redox chemistry is not at all limited to transition metals, but I am often surprised at iodine’s propensity to engage in it. A lot of research over the past decade or two has also developed redox catalysis with these reagents, reactivity which is commonly (though again not always) the purview of transition metals.

Iodine is a transition metal I will die on this hill.

δ 8.52 - 0.91 ppm (m, 56 H). e z