In this experiment, palladium complexes were synthesized from palladium chloride. The initial product was a benzonitrile-palladium complex, but this was reacted with ethylene to form a Cl-bridged ethylene-palladium complex. The structure of this is fascinating for two reasons: first of all, the bridging Cl ligand is interesting, and the way the ethylene bonds to the metal center through its pi-bond is even more interesting. Super cool stuff.
This was our first experiment and I was unsure what to expect; this chemistry lab was much longer in class length than any other and that was kind of intimidating. It was also my first physical class since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. However, things ended up going relatively smoothly due to precautions and other measures taken by the UCF staff such as measuring our temperatures before entering the building, ensuring we wear our masks, and handing us experimental kits that are disinfected between uses. While it did take long and the product wasn't completely pure, we did end up succesfully synthesizing two different Cobalt-mimt complexes. This experiment yielded a really clean FTIR spectra that was easy to break down to see different functional groups and contaminants, which was really a really good skill to sharpen up early in the semester as it would come to help with every single lab after this. A 75% yield was impressive, bu...

Comments
Post a Comment