Shadowing experiment

I Shadowed Giovanni. His experiment was about nitrating toluene using a rare earth catalyst. His research dealt with the use of an environmentally friendly catalyst using specific aromatic compounds such as alkyl benzenes. The importance of this research is that replacing sulfuric acid with ytterbium triflate can have beneficial results in using less dangerous chemicals and providing minimal chemical waste to the environment. Nitrating aromatic compounds is important in the industry in creating dyes, pharmaceuticals, and other industrial products. However, Giovanni told me that while nitration of the aromatic compounds does occur, what doesn’t occur is that there seems to not be a high yield of the product. He told me that the exception was toluene. Now, he wants to test alkybenzenes and see if they might be only types of arenes that produce more of the desired product. He’ll do that by testing the electron-donating ability of toluene and cumene and conclude whether the alkyl group of the aromatic compound influences the yield in anyway; he says that the bulkier group of cumene will lead to higher yield recovery.

From my day of shadowing, I saw him separate the organic layer from the aqueous layer in the separatory funnel. He told me that the organic layer contains the desired product while the aqueous layer contains the catalyst that he used in place of sulfuric acid. He then started to add two washings of diethyl ether because it separates any remaining organic droplets still present in the aqueous layer. After the washings occurred, he showed me across his work station the rotovaporization machine. This machine serves as a vacuum suction device that dries the product so that the product can be acquired without any unwanted solution. Giovanni disconnected the flask containing the aqueous layer from the machine so that it can be reweighted and calculate how much of his catalyst was regained. He would do the same thing to the flask containing the organic layer. After the drying of the organic layer, Giovanni will weigh his flask and calculate how much of his product he has.

That was all he showed me but we did not get the opportunity for him to show me how he will identify the product. He mentioned that he will use the IR spectroscopy machine in the Organic Chemistry lab when it is properly fixed. Overall, I found my shadowing experience to be interesting. It’s interesting because we both are dealing with the underlying concept of chemistry however; I am modeling the chemical reaction while he is doing the actual lab experiment. My experiment is basically concerned with how we can model the chemical reaction.

I like his research experiment rather than mine because his research helps to develop technique for undergraduate students; however, mine is basically concerned with how to use tools to perform calculation using Gaussian program. I learned from his experiment that there are two different ways of doing experiment: one is physical where a researcher has to handle chemicals and note the change that occurs during experimentation while next one is a mathematical one where you have to deal with several theories proved by experimental procedures. I shadowed his experiment because I am familiar with Nitration reaction and its properties.