Perfect Separation

They don’t just occur in chemistry catalogs, they can be something in real life too (though the :

My Separatory Funnel

I will contrast this with the same reaction when I first did it, wherein the layers were darker, murkier and had more insoluble muck in them. The reaction conditions have been slightly tweaked, but broadly the chemicals in the flask are the same, so it is as much about the hands that do the chemistry getting better at it as it is the reaction going on in the flask. Though I did learn some things about the accuracy of the thermocouple of my heating/stirring plate at higher temperatures – this reaction was run at a high enough temperature that the cooling from the air in the hood was enough to prevent the oil bath reaching the desired temperature and the oil temperature measured by thermometer was a little lower than the reading on the dial as well.

Anyway, I thought it was a nice shot to share.