This week in the lab was my last so I was a little pressed for time when it came to running new reactions. Monday started with four more small vial reactions of our Aryl Boronic acid and Aryl Iodide scopes. I weighed out the solid reagents in their vials then used a syringe to measure the correct amount of liquid reagents and added them in. Our reactions include water and TDG mixed together so we used a sonicator to mix them very well. A sonicator is a sonic wave bath that spins the contents of a vial around by blasting different types of sonic waves toward them. After the sonicator, I added the mixture to our vial and let them cook on a heat plate for two hours. To make sure nothing gets stuck at the bottom, I added a magnetic stir bar that spins on the plate to help mix the reagents.
The vials were done after two hours and I removed them from heat plate and began transferring them into a solution of hydrochloric acid and ethyl acetate. This makes the unwanted “trash” compounds from the reaction to sink down while keeping what we want at the top. Then, I pipetted them through sodium sulfate as another form of removing unwanted compounds. I was then left with four test vials of our crude products. The next day I ran several prep TLC’s of the vials to purify our solution. These separate different bands of products into silica making it possible to scrape them and isolate our product. We isolated them and weighed the vials to calculate our product yield.
Thursday was National Intern Day at scripps and they threw a lunch party for all the interns spending their summer at Scripps. They served catered tacos and had a bunch of games like Jenga, Cornhole, and Bingo. They also had a raffle for a gift basket of scripps merch and assorted goodies so I entered for that. I actually won the raffle and got a tote-bag, mug, notebooks and more. I’m glad I won because now I have a bunch of stuff to remember this internship that I will use. Me and the other interns in the lab got a chemistry themed picture too!
I am so thankful towards the Engle Lab, Keary, and every member that accepted me into the lab and helped me learn from a knowlege base of basically zero. This internship was so much fun, I am so grateful for the opportunity that I was given. This weekend I am heading LA to tour schools and then back to Telluride for the remainder of Summer.
Thank you Scripps, Pinhead, and most importantly my host moms who made this all possible.
It was great to work with you this summer, Luka. You were a great intern, and I’m so proud of everything you accomplished!