Time to Say Goodbye

Wow, it is amazing how great things always go by too fast. I can remember coming the first day and everyone looking at me like I was crazy. I didn't know anyone. That time is now long gone. From the very first lunch we were all bonding very well and now we are great friends. The SEED students are all amazing people hat I am so glad to have met. This summer was amazing.

I had such a great time learning about all of the different aspects of chemistry from working in Dr. Basu's lab to touring PPG and Bayer. We did so many fun things this summer. I don't know what the rest of it will be like with about 3 weeks left full of Cross Country practice and getting to see my friends from school that graduated one last time before they go off to college. I think that it will still feel pretty empty though because I won't get to see all of my friends from SEED every day.

I am so glad to have had this opportunity to not only learn about chemistry but to meet new friends and have a great summer. Some people might think I was crazy for saying that this was fun but they weren't here, they didn't get to meet everyone. Thanks to Mr. Lucas for the coffee, the lunch, and all of the hard work that he put in to make sure we didn't look like idiots presenting at the symposium or when writing our papers. You made the summer great too. Thanks to Dr. Aitken, Dr. Basu, and Ben for helping so much in getting everything together for SEED and for helping me throughout the summer. It wouldn't be possible without you.

Most importantly thanks to Sydney, Marissa, Liz, Amanda, Mary, Tristan, and Chris for helping me survive here. Thanks for all of the great times and you are all amazing people. Keep in touch.

For the last time this is Ian writing a blog post. Thanks.

Tag Team Blog Challenge

Hey guys, this is Ian and Mary and we're gonna rock your socks. We decided to combine our posts into one awesome post filled with magical adventures in the realms of chemistry.

This is Mary. She is a senior at North Catholic High School and is working with Dr. Jeffry Madura in his computational chemistry lab. On an average day, she is running jobs on the National Science Foundation's TeraGrid super computer. Although, it took a lot of trials and errors... especially a lot of errors, to get to where she is now. Throughout the past 8 weeks, Mary has started over approximately 17 times (we lost count). Her project is to model the effects of sodium and potassium chloride on glutamic acid. The reason for doing such a wonderful project is to study how proteins made up of glutamic acid will be effected by sodium and potassium chloride. As you can see in the picture, she loves to decorate her cubicle..and everyone else's for that matter. Now that Mary finally has everything working properly, she is analyzing data 24/7. In this particular picture, she is analyzing her 2.0M NaCl salt box after 30 nanoseconds of molecular dynamics.

_________________________________________________________

This is Ian. He is also going to be a senior but he goes to Sewickley Academy. He is working with Ben Mogesa and Dr. Basu making synthetic bio-mimetic compounds. He is seen here making his copper (I) complex with dithione ligands. He is working in the glove box to be able to prevent oxygen from reacting with his compounds because it is filled with nitrogen. After making the compound, he dries it using a vacuum to suck out the liquid solvent and then can use the dried product. He can put it into different solvents and then analyze it using UV-Vis and Cyclic Voltammetry or he can use it dry to analyze it using IR. Ian also used copper (II) in his complex to study a different form of the complex.

Dr. Cavanaugh the Pharmacologist

Dr. Cavanaugh was just a regular girl growing up in Reading Pennsylvania. She attended Central Catholic High School and took your regular medley of classes including AP English and Chemistry. Her great chemistry teacher led her to want to study chemistry more and delve into the mysteries of the chemistry world.

Dr. Cavanaugh continued her magical journey called school by going to Franklin and Marshall in Lancaster PA. While she had a good time her freshman year, it is something she regrets because of her somewhat relaxed attitude towards school. It was her first time away from home and she wanted to take the time to relish in her newfound freedom. Since then she has realized that you only have one chance to do it right and that is one of her biggest regrets.

Afterwards however she learned how to manage her time more and buckled down to learn. She majored in Chemistry there but with the wisdom and guidance of her Spirit Mentor(most call them "College Advisors") she decided to go to Penn State College of Medicine for Pharmacology in Hershey because of its practical use, medical relevance, and the combination of both chemistry and biology(she didn't choose Penn State for the chocolate though). She then went to get her post-doc at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Now-a-days though she works at Duquesne University where she educates students. Her favorite part is getting to meet students that are like little birds. Students that require her help to grow and to learn but soon after become very capable and are able to survive on their own. Her second greatest accomplishment has to be helping her students to become independent thinkers and help them become ready to tackle gigantic challenges and obstacles. Her greatest accomplishment however has nothing to do with education. Her greatest accomplishment is her daughter.

Carpe Diem

Ian Carroll

Busy, Busy, Busy

Things are really starting to roll here. Along with all of our projects we have tons of other things to do. It seems like every day we have some kind of extra thing to do from SEED group meetings every Wednesday(along with our own Lab group meetings at various times) to field trips starting next week to PPG and Washington and Jefferson. It is really exciting though. I can't wait to go to all of these places. It is really nice to get out of the lab every once in a while (even though I enjoy that too).

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman

Ian's Project

Hi everyone, Alright, well my project has a long and complicated title... don't believe me?

It's called the Synthesis and Characterization of Copper and Cobalt Complexes with Dithione Ligands.

Ok, well now that that is out of the way... Let's explain what in the world this means. A ligand is just a molecule that binds to a metal like copper, cobalt, or molybdenum. The two types of ligands are dithiolene and dithione. The differences between the two are just how the elements are bonded together. Sometimes there are single bonds and sometimes double bonds. On the dithione, the double bonds let the extra hydrogen go away.

These ligands containing sulfur are found often in the body bonded to molybdenum. My project is to create copper and cobalt version of the man-made form of the molybdenum complex and compare the three using Ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy(UV-Vis), Infrared spectroscopy(IR), and Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy(NMR).

My Experiment So Far:

Alright, so now that you have some background info, let's get into what I am actually doing...

1. 2. 3.

4.

First I took N,N diisoproyl ethylene diamine(1.) and reacted it with diethyl oxalate (2.) to get the1,4-diisoproyl – 2,3- piperazinedione (3.) and from there we reacted it with Lawesson's reagent to create number 4. which is the dithione ligand. This reaction can be very random sometimes because the Lawesson's reagent can form many different things. In order to get only the ligand we had to do something called column chromatography. The white and yellow parts are just some random things that are waste. We only wanted the dark brown portion which is the ligand.

From here we recrystallized the ligand using hot ethanol then letting it sit in the fridge for the night. Once we got the ligand we were able to use it to create the copper complex. We first had to react copper (I) oxide in acetonitrile with perchloric acid to create [Cu(CH₃CN)₄][CLO₄]. The[Cu(CH₃CN)₄][CLO₄] reacts with air so we had to do the experiment in the dry box which is filled with nitrogen instead of air.

From here we reacted it with the ligand to create the final product, the copper dithione complex. The next things we need to do are create the cobalt dithione complex in much the same way as how we created the copper dithione complex. We also need to characterize the ligand and complexes using the UV-Vis, NMR, and IR.

And lastly, just some random thing that i had to learn in order to be able to do some of these reaction is dispensing liquid nitrogen. It is actually really simple... as long as you wear gloves because it can get a little cold.

Greenthumb

Hi, This is my first post so bare with me. Today I got to learn many new things. I learned where to eat, how to use this blogger site, and I got to start my project after yesterday's safety training. I got to meet many new people... mainly becuase I didn't know any of them. I like all of them and can't wait to learn more about them as the summer continues. So far I have worked in the lab for only a few hours but I already really enjoy it. Ben(the student that I am working with) is really nice and definitely knows what he is doing (which is more than I can say about me so far). Hopefully I can learn a lot more about my project as we get further into the summer.
-Ian Carroll