Organic Chem Lab and your horror story.

[Amba]

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Nothing too crazy for me. I managed to lose 100% of my product during recrystallization once but that's about it.

It's always funny when someone forgets a boiling chip/stick but then adds one when the solution is already hot (my roommate for next year did this). Over course, it boiled like crazy all over the bench.

 

[ShoTyme]

Broke several pieces of glassware. Grabbed a 180 degree Al block with my bare hand - seemed like the thing to do at the time. During setup, had a hose slip off and drench me with water - quite funny. Got a yield of 3% for one experiment due to laughing while transferring my yield - spillage, oops.

But the good part is that my lab partner used to be a masseuse, so while waiting for a reaction to take place, I get the most phenomenal back rubs!

 

[mishaS]

This isn't my story, but that of my orgo 2 lab prof:

When he was working on his PHD, he was doing something with Lithium Aluminum Hydride, a lot of it, and he was doing it in a 10L giant beaker in a pressure hood that was filled with nitrogen to prevent the stuff from lighting on it's own. Apparently he added too much, and the reaction started to boil out of control. He, using his science skillz, figured he could increase the pressure in the hood to force the boil down. It worked for all of 5 seconds, after which the whole reaction went out of control, and the whole hood exploded. He then had to scramble to clean it all up before his PI got back to the lab. He said he could see the bits of the lithium aluminum hydride sparking as he was cleaning it.

Another lab prof talked how in one of the labs, they had been storing some reagent in a hood, and being the back of the hood, it just sat there, for years. Apparently when this reagent crystallizes it becomes an extremely potent (and sensitive) contact explosive. One night it went boom, taking out the hood a doing quite a bit of damage to the lab.

Personally, in our lab a quarter got thrown into nitric acid, which resulted in the copper inside reacting and forming tons of NO2, which is by far the most evil looking gas ever. Thankfully it was in a hood, because inhaling that stuff can result in permanent damage to the lungs and pulmonary edema. Someone also made gun cotton in that class as well.

 

[osprey099]

I currently have an A in Orgo lecture and a C+ in Orgo lab. Orgo lab is messed up in so many areas, at least at my school. I think you probably need to take both Orgo lectures before taking orgo lab or else (like me and many others in my lab) you won't know what you are doing in lab and you will feel especially miserable on the practical.

 

[Skeletorre]

i had an idiot lab partner...we were trying to use the GC...needless to say he somehow stab me with the syringe filled with an unknown compound when trying to turn around to someone calling his name.

Two problems with this situation.

1. Lowered our yield and hence our grade
2. Some unknown injected into my arm

But i lived....

Wow. All I have to say about this.

I haven't had organic lab yet, but I'm working in the organic lab with my professor with reserach. Worst story so far is that me and my lab partners, 3 of us, managed to get our product on our hands. My hands were purple for a day, my friend yellow, and another red. Worst part we couldn't get it off using acetone...

 

[ACE Rx]

I remember my organic lab days pretty well. There was one lab where I redid a procedure twice and had practically 0% product. As I gave up and started cleaning up, I saw another student also cleaning up and placing something in the trash that I had not used before. I asked her what it was and she replied, "filter paper."

I had no idea how I managed to get an A in the course because everything was based on a curve (technique points count). Even if you had a 91 average, you could still get a B after the curve because they only allowed 4 out of 25 students per lab section to get an A. It was super competitive and glad those days are over. 🙂

 

[circulus vitios]

I was running a reflux on a reaction. The lab manual said to stir constantly so as to avoid bumping. I threw boiling stones in the round bottom flask and hoped it would work out, since I had no idea how I was supposed to stir something that was mounted to a ring stand. Bad idea. The stuff I was refluxing (can't remember what it was, other than it contained 10M+ HCl) bumped like crazy and sprayed over a vertical column / the ceiling. Good thing I didn't get any on myself.

edit: Oh, and I stained my hands bright orange while working with some sort of a qualitative reagent. It wasn't entirely my fault, though. Some other genius got it on his hands first, then got it all over the dropper and dropper bottle.

 

[circulus vitios]

Another lab prof talked how in one of the labs, they had been storing some reagent in a hood, and being the back of the hood, it just sat there, for years. Apparently when this reagent crystallizes it becomes an extremely potent (and sensitive) contact explosive. One night it went boom, taking out the hood a doing quite a bit of damage to the lab.

Picric acid?

Back in the day, my school used picric acid in undergraduate labs. This stopped when they had to call a bomb squad to dispose of a couple hundred milligrams of picric acid crystals. My professor said the detonation was the loudest thing he's ever heard.

 

[zma21]

Picric acid?

Back in the day, my school used picric acid in undergraduate labs. This stopped when they had to call a bomb squad to dispose of a couple hundred milligrams of picric acid crystals. My professor said the detonation was the loudest thing he's ever heard.

Also tri-nitrophenol?

We had a student produce a small amount of .... ... tri-nitrotoluene. For those gen-chemmers out there, that's TNT.

I guess it was only a major poof, not a minor explosion.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

Today I was synthesizing luminol and apparently there was a small crack in my Erlenmeyer flask. So I add all the ingredients, I boil it at around 220 degree's Celsius for about 10 minutes and then I set it to cool to 100 degrees so I can add other chemicals to it. So, I go like 5 feet away from my hood and get some dioniozed water, I come back to find my flask is completely empty and all over my work bench. I look at the glass and find about a cm in diameter hole in the side.
End result, I lost 90% of my product, but the IR turned out fine. But Jesus, if that wasn't my last lab, I would probably have freaked out and raged.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

Picric acid?

Back in the day, my school used picric acid in undergraduate labs. This stopped when they had to call a bomb squad to dispose of a couple hundred milligrams of picric acid crystals. My professor said the detonation was the loudest thing he's ever heard.

I think every organic chemistry professor has a good story revolving around pictoric acid. My orgo teacher while a post-doc said that his colleague had an ancient jar of the stuff ( He didn't know it was pictoric acid) on a shelf for simple aesthetic effect and that when the director came into his office and saw it he nearly shat himself. Pretty much end result is they called a team and the boom was apparently very loud.
My orgo teacher is also a pyromaniac though...

 

[syeh3]

im so scared!!! i took my lab practical and really think i flunked it. but my lab reports were like B and higher but i got low yields sometimes...T___T and i failed two quizes but passed one............i really hope i get a B-.............T____T. and lab practical is 10% of my lab grade......ugh

 

[mct2762]

I'm just glad our lab grade was not based on product yield. Pretty sure I tripped and spilled something every stinkin lab

 

[mehc012]

We didn't have lab TAs...which meant that you had to go up to the prof (who you eventually wanted a rec from) and hang your head in shame as you showed him the pasteur pipette broken off and sticking out from its new home...lodged deep in your thumb. Stupid micro-filtration...what do they expect when they tell you to pack a glass pipette full of glass wool?

Mine was all solo.

Also, my school has separate labs for Organic I and II. And they are taught by the chemistry professor, not a TA. In other words, our organic labs are actually pretty awesome 😀

Sounds like ours, only instead of second semester you could choose to take this insane course where they refused to tell you how to do anything and just gave you a goal, a budget, and full access to all chemicals and scientific equipment in the school (the budget was for a few new reagents or paying an outside lab to run tests you couldn't perform).

 

[Optimus-Prime]

During column chromatography my ******* lab partner dropped a rubber dropper in the column, which *&$#' ed up all the sand and silicon layers

 

[drpoundsign]

I was ALWAYS the Sacrificial Lamb...in Premed...in my Diploma mill med school...and in my Residency. Mostly my own Dang Fault, I'll admit. I was SO Demoralized in early 1980! My Grandmother was dying, my late mother was away taking Care of said Grandmother, and Dad was working as a scientist while trying to help my Dumb Arse out-but that created a Lot of Tension. I was a Sad Loner. I dropped the lecture course, because I was overwhelmed and the two credit Orgo Lab course was separate (In THIS Bastard branch campus of a major school-the one and two credit lab courses Generated more work than the five credit theoretical course-and when they are two separate courses instead of different sections of the Same course-Stay AWAY-HUGE red Flag!) Anyhow, my yields were too low, I wrote POS writeups, and in a Class with some A's, Mostly B's and one C, the prof. tried to make ME the E. "I don't have very good news for you-you didn't make a pass." WTF?!? OK so I Sucked, but I didn't blow off the class or cheat. Father pleaded my case with the committee and so he relented and gave me a D, but I got this Same Bastard repeating the lecture course in the Summer!

 

[Doudline]

I was ALWAYS the Sacrificial Lamb...in Premed...in my Diploma mill med school...and in my Residency. Mostly my own Dang Fault, I'll admit. I was SO Demoralized in early 1980! My Grandmother was dying, my late mother was away taking Care of said Grandmother, and Dad was working as a scientist while trying to help my Dumb Arse out-but that created a Lot of Tension. I was a Sad Loner. I dropped the lecture course, because I was overwhelmed and the two credit Orgo Lab course was separate (In THIS Bastard branch campus of a major school-the one and two credit lab courses Generated more work than the five credit theoretical course-and when they are two separate courses instead of different sections of the Same course-Stay AWAY-HUGE red Flag!) Anyhow, my yields were too low, I wrote POS writeups, and in a Class with some A's, Mostly B's and one C, the prof. tried to make ME the E. "I don't have very good news for you-you didn't make a pass." WTF?!? OK so I Sucked, but I didn't blow off the class or cheat. Father pleaded my case with the committee and so he relented and gave me a D, but I got this Same Bastard repeating the lecture course in the Summer!

Honey, what a mess...

 

[Pusheen]

What the heck did I just read