Chemistry Blog » Katherine Mirica http://www.chemistry-blog.com We have technical difficulties, it will take a day or two to get back to normal. Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:26:39 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Magnetic Levitation: Because TLC Plates are so 20th Century http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2008/12/14/magnetic-levitation-because-tlc-plates-are-so-20th-century/ http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2008/12/14/magnetic-levitation-because-tlc-plates-are-so-20th-century/#comments Sun, 14 Dec 2008 22:10:59 +0000 mitch http://www.chemistry-blog.com/?p=654 Mirica et al. had an awesome JACS communication out last week. They use magnets to track the progress of reactions. A schematic is shown below.

By using a paramagnetic solution (GdCl3) and polymeric beads as their solid support, they monitor the progress of reactions as a function of their beads’ height. The setup is very sensitive to the density (g/ml) of the beads, thus as the beads are chemically modified the height changes. The beads cluster together when they are mostly all starting material or product. They spread out as different beads take different amounts of time to become fully reacted. Some images from their paper and supporting information really highlight this effect.

Reprinted with permission from the American Chemical Society: Journal of the American Chemical Society (Dec. 2008).

What else can we use magnets in the lab for, ideas anyone?

Link to article: Using Magnetic Levitation To Distinguish Atomic-Level Differences in Chemical Composition of Polymers, and To Monitor Chemical Reactions on Solid Supports

Mitch


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