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The Old Lab
Hello everybody, welcome to the Lab Tour, I would like to bring you to a once restricted area in our Chemistry Department! 353A.
Behind the door are the two large nitrogen-flushed chambers, the dry boxes. We perform almost all the reactions in this extremely air and moisture tight environment. Maybe I should say they are the heart of our laboratory. I am proud to say, there are only 4 dry boxes in our department, and the two most frequently used and maintained in excellent condition are in our lab!
On your left hand side is our working benches and the place for solvent distillation. Why there is no one working against the benches?
Hey, you can always see our labmates workng busily like the bees in front of the dry boxes.

 
Lab Equipment
In doing organometallic synthesis, we need extremely anhydrous solvents as reaction media. The solvents we use are distilled over appropriate reagents beforehand.
And all the glassware used is dried in oven!
We have our own vacuum line!
We may do our reactions outside using Schlenk technique.
However, most reactions are proceeded in the dry boxes. It simplifies much reaction process.
After reaction and the work-up process, the last thing we can do is waiting for crystal!
Some of them are placed outside dry boxes, as the solvents used for crystallization may poison the catalyst of dry boxes.
If you get the transparent and well-shaped crystal, thanks God, this is the happiness thing in the world! We have to mount it as soon as possible for X Ray analysis.

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