In the meantime, since I need to get a couple of transformers to step down the voltage from 240V to 120V so I can run those stirrer and hotplates, and I'll have to wait for the heating mantle I ordered to arrive, I ordered yet another hotplate/stirrer, this time that hopefully should be coming to me quickly since its coming from not too far away, germany.
It is SO frustrating not having a hotplate/stirrer available, and being forced away from the benchtop almost completely. Although I am at least managing to re-do the work that was recently destroyed along with some expensive equipment that will be difficult to replace (see elder's, and it stays there too), by using a microwave-catalyzed route to what I have been working on. and will manage the one distillation I need to do on it by either cooling it down in an ice bath first and vacuum distilling off the methanol cold, so the reactants don't carry over, or else or using a boiling water bath because the methanol is the only component of the mixture that has to come off, and its also the only part that boils under 100 degrees so a boiling water bath cannot rise any hotter than that.
Got to say though, I really like the microwave based synthesis, its really effective, and its damnable fast too. The usual route to the compound I'm making involves heating the two reagents used with the catalyst needed together in a flask on a steam bath at about 60 to 70 degrees for, quantity dependent, anything from 2 to 6 hours. But in a microwave? 10 minutes to half an hour, pulsed irradiation taking it up to 60-70 then immediately taking it out and putting it in a cold water bath, then after that total irradiation time, putting it in the freezer then after a few hours, whilst still freezing cold, one last nuke up to 60 degrees and allowed to slowly cool to room temperature, back into freezer, preferably, if available, adding a little seed crystal of the compound in question if the rxn has been done before and a flake or two is available to assist crystallization.
The methanol addition was an experiment, to assist in regulating the boiling point of the rxn mixture as the microwave can get it very hot very quickly. but turns out the compound is extremely soluble in even the small amount of MeOH added, although the rxn will proceed just the same. The MeOH however will need to be distilled off before I can freeze-precipitate out my replacement first step in re-doing the work twice trashed by that fucking faggot shit-eating dirt ape.
