Dear IONiC friends,

It is time for us to replace our shelves in our chemical storage room. Does anyone have any recommendations? We have a big store room, so cost will be a factor. But we of course want to be as safe as possible. Are lips necessary? What chemically-resistant surface do you have? (Yes, we have professionals on this, but this community always has great suggestions.)

Thanks,

Joanne

I've been trying to get an old glove box working better and came accross a cool new option from Vac atmospheres for O2 removal.  They now sell activated cartridges for a couple hundred bucks each that contain an already active copper catalyst for O2 removal.  For about 2k, you can buy a little blower that the cartridge mounts to and turn any air tight chamber into a glove box.  For me, the economics will work out better than maintaining the specialty gas cylinder required for regeneration.

A research student (Nicole Stephens) walks into my office and asks me to look at her TLC plate. Upon looking under the UV light I burst out laughing. I have never seen a TLC like this before and wanted to share the joy. Please feel free to share any humorous anecdotes with fellow Vipers.

Hi All,

I was looking up techniques to silylate J-Young NMR tubes to reduce the chances of adventiitous water/SiOH groups doing unwanted chemistry. Has anyone done this before and what conditions/reagents did they use? 

Thanks,

Kyle 

We are beginning to put together some instrument proposals. I need/want a GC-MS for research and teaching. Doesn't need fancy bells and whistles. I am way out of date on this technology. Any recommendations?

needs:

capillary column

easy to switch column

i don't even know what else to list.  don't need autosampler. it is used principally by my research students and secondarially by first year students for 2 weeks a year.

Adam

Dear VIPEr friends,

One of our summer research students is collecting isotopes from an accelerator to be used for potential medical purposes. He would like to know if there's a way to pull vanadium out of the aqueous mixture. There's a laundry list of other possible products: Mn, Sc, Co, Cr, Ti, Ar, Fe, and Si.

So flex those qual muscles and let me know what you think!

Thanks,

Joanne

I'm looking into the possibility of a custom vacuum line. Any recommendations for a good glassblower with reasonable prices/ turnaround times?

Bad expirences would also be useful to know about (private messages welcome). 

Hi Everyone,

Has anyone in this group written an NSF supplement on another PI's NSF grant to do a sabbatical or summer visit?  I'm getting ready to write one and have no idea what something like this would look like.

Thanks,

Benny

Dear VIPEr community,

My friend, Shannon Biros at Grand Valley State University, has started organizing PUI research symposia at the national ACS meetings in the fall in the Division of Organic chemistry. She has a full slate for the Indianapolis meeting and now she is working on finding people for the San Francisco meeting in August 2014. Please suggest names of friends and colleagues at PUIs that are able to deliver a great 15-20 minute research talk, particularly if that research involves students.

Thanks!