How is everyone doing?? I hope you all had a great spring break, but the fun is over and it is time to get back to work. First of all, I would like to remind you that we are almost done with the semesters. I can’t wait to learn about your projects at the end of the semester.

         As for my project, it has its ups and downs. I am still in the process of synthesizing my catalyst,but unfortunately, I had to start all over!! The week before spring break, I left a reaction running, and later found out that I didn't add enough solvent to my solution and the reaction wasn’t successful. I also had some problems with some lab equipment this week and expensive lab glassware was broken (my bad).However, I am confident that next week I will have completed synthesizing my catalyst and start my carbon dioxide reductions, which is the main goal of my project.   

Picture of  a  glovebox

My Reactions Bombs Heating in Oil Bath

ASU Internship-week 3

              It’s been a while since I updated on my research, and I apologize for that. Don’t worry, I haven’t made a scientific breakthrough and there really isn’t much to update. Up to this point in the semester, I have been working on synthesizing the catalyst. Unfortunately, the catalyst I am working on is not something you can order online from a chemical manufacturer. In fact, professor Trovitch likes to point out that I have the world’s supply. Making it requires  time, there are  reactions that take more than 24 hours. However, thanks to the help of the graduate student that’s working with me, I am almost done. I know everyone wants more detail into the mechanism of the reactions. I am going to start working on writing them down with a chemical software I just downloaded.

ASU Internship-Week 1

    I am excited to start blogging once again, and I hope everyone is having a great start to the year.This semester, I will be doing my internship at ASU with Professor Ryan Trovitch's research group. The focus of my research will be synthesizing a molybdenum metal complex, and studying its catalytic behavior for reducing carbon dioxide to methanol and other useful organic compounds.
    The catalyst is an inorganic coordination complex, that consists of a central atom (called coordination center), surrounded by various organic/inorganic molecules (called ligands). The ligand in my catalyst is called alpha-diimine (DI). The ligand and the molybdenum atom share electron density, which gives the molybdenum a 2+ net charge (resonance structure). Due to this 2+ net charge, the molybdenum complex can undergo some very interesting chemistry...

Picture of the ligand