Ferrocene is one of those compounds you just get excited to hear about due to its vast amount of uses and interesting properties. In this lab, ferrocene underwent acid catalysis to add an acetyl group to one of the cyclopentadiene rings. This experiment was initially used to prove the aromatic nature of these Cp rings, but has come to be useful to substitute different things onto ferrocene compounds.
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...

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