Sunday, November 29, 2009

The Colour of Organic Chemistry

As a synthetic organic chemist what I would like at the end of the day are some white or colourless crystals. However, off-white, tan or yellow amorphous solid is more or less what you expect to end up with. But when I get bright pink, purple and green stuff I really don't know what to make of it. D!
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11 comments:

  1. OrganicOverdose30 November, 2009 02:18

    I think I found a similar colour on my column a few times when running a Barton decarboxylation. I think the pyrithione had a high level of conjugation or something and it went a nice purple/green like that. It is always refreshing to see a different colour other than white/yellow.

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  2. Ψ*Ψ30 November, 2009 04:39

    See, pink and purple are closer to what I expect! Green, on the other hand...green is often the color of fail in organic materials.

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  3. ChemGrad30 November, 2009 08:37

    Does it smells nice?

    I've made a pink compound (I've done the synthesis before and resulted white crystals at one time and brown crystals at another) with sweet watermelon-like smell

    :D

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  4. Unknown01 December, 2009 01:24

    I think pTsOH has given me that color before (as well as nice needle-shape crystals)

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  5. BabeToluene01 December, 2009 07:44

    I'm working on a synthesis now in which the first four steps take me from brown to bright yellow to grandma pink and finally to colorless oil. The first time I got through step four I was a little freaked out...

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  6. SiO2lungs02 December, 2009 00:24

    ... at the end of the day I always expect colorless oils :)

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  7. Anonymous02 December, 2009 17:37

    We have a rule in our lab that if you get something that falls out of the white/yellow/brown/black realm of colours, then you get a punch in the arm by any of your labmates 'cos organic chemistry shouldn't be coloured!

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  8. Med Chem05 December, 2009 12:48

    may be column will remove those color side products. While working with pyridine compounds, I too get similar colored compounds (Yellow, red, green).
    Looks beautiful but have to make it white in most cases, hehe!

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  9. milkshake05 December, 2009 19:53

    this looks like something that one can get for not watching out on a date

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  10. Aditya Bhattacharyya08 December, 2009 19:49

    I have prepared vinyl aziridines which show beautiful pink colour. N-Nosyl aziridines also show yellow colour.

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  11. Anonymous08 April, 2010 17:45

    Made two similar reactions that gave one a light blue colour and the other a light green colour, first things come to mind is degradation!!!

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