Alucard 11189 said:
Yeah, all the Baker Venkataramen rearrangement essentially is, is Claisen, I had to draw out and explain the Claisen condensation reaction in my presentation/oral exam, but you would be surprised how many in my group didn't know it, and I didn't have any problems whatsoever with the synthesis, the toughest was the Ruthenium chemistry was the most difficult as some of the bloody complexes didn't want to be synthesized! The [Ru(II)(dppz)(phen)2]2+ complex was quite easy to synthesize, as was the [Ru(II)(Phen)3]2+ but one of them (I forget which) just wouldn't bloody cooperate. Gold you say? That actually sounds very interesting, I want to know more about that, I will keep a look out for the article. As for your woes on your project, believe me, nothing is as simple as it seems on paper. We outlined a plan for the synthesis in the Ruthenium chemistry and it was simple on paper, but when your complexes won't cooperate it was enough for us to nearly fling the refluxing equipment at our Chemistry advisor (and then the IR machine decided to break, that was a really fun day)
I've never really done transition metal complex syntheses (pure organic or protein for me), though that sounds like the gadolinium complex chemistry another of my friends does at Imperial (medical molecular imaging). Hell I had trouble with a Wittig reaction early on. It's a Wittig, it should work at room temperature, under air, with just stirring. WORK, DAMN YOU! It works now, by the way, though not because of the shouting.
Still, our group is right royally buggered for the next month or so... some bright spark effectively pulled our funding. An administrative error, granted, but when we have shit loads of money but can't spend it (it's been like this for a couple weeks now), it inevitably pisses a lot of people off. When in the lab, most of the senior people... and consequently, everyone, have been in high dudgeon, except the mature student who continues, as ever, to make inappropriate jokes, for which we're thankful (especially when he started coming up with 'gay names' for the straight guys and 'straight names' for the gay guys).
I am glad I turned you on, it reinforces the idea that getting into the life sciences was indeed the correct choice
.
*ahem* How do I respond to that...? You're welcome! XD