How is the royal beauty? I do hope she's feeling better than she has been of late.
And please, do pass on my warmest regards
What have I done....research, research, more research, crystallizing an intermediate compound for one of my projects. More research, a lot of reading, and getting ready to synthesize some diisopropylethylamine (Hunig's base, a non-nucleophilic amine base) or possibly dimethylethylamine or dimethylisopropylamine using methyl iodide and the appropriate alkylamines. Or possibly isopropyl iodide. Either way, going to have to do it all the hard way, synthesizing the alkyl halides and reacting same with the appropriate amine)
Don't need anything special as such, just a tertiary amine that I can use as a sacrificial base to scrub HCl during the use of alkyl and carboxylic acid halides. Because, whilst I'd not need much in the way of a base, for use of the carboxylic acid anhydride option I have, its inefficient, because for every mole of the desired amide formed, an equimolar quantity of butyric acid is formed. And butyric acid stinks something fucking filthy. Like super-concentrated puke. IIRC its what gives barf its nasty sour rank acrid rancid stench. Also found (the acid, not its anhydride) in rancid butter, hence the derived name. But compared to n-butyric anhydride, n-butyryl chloride or bromide would have proved significantly more expensive. And as it is, I could still only afford 100ml of the anhydride, as well as 100g of the alkyl halide that I need directly for my project.
Sigma-Aldrich have excellent products, but their prices are sky high, and without my having good contacts, I'd not have been able to buy anything from them at all, as they have one hell of a snobbish attitude towards hobbyists, in that they just won't do business with us whatsoever.
Thankfully, I know of somebody who knows of somebody who knows of somebody who works for them. And I can get me whatever I need, more or less. And advantageously since they don't even consider that sector of the market, either hobbyists or clandestine types, some reagents that would prove very expensive if obtained through suppliers catering TO such market sectors, actually come cheap as hell.
You seem to be lost in your own thoughts.