We occupy a modern organic lab on the fourth floor of Dalhousie's Chemistry Building, equipped with twenty feet of fumehood space. We also have a large amount of bench space for storage, and an adjoining student office. Two of our most important tools are 2 double station gloveboxes. One glovebox is kept free of volatile Lewis bases, and is used for exploring asymmetric catalysis, photochemical reactions, and other reactions with Lewis acidic intermediates. The other glovebox is used for working up large reactions, set-up of exploratory reactions, and radical reactions, which require volatile Lewis bases, and volatile hydride reductants. These interfere with our asymmetric catalysis, and separating the reactions has proven beneficial for maximizing productivity.
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Chemistry is pretty! This is a highly conjugated (and fluorescent) ligand employed in some of our early work. |
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| We employ Schlenk technique to prepare and isolate reactive main group complexes. Here Matt is preparing a highly reactive phosphine based compound. |
