Synthesis tips101. Make your condition inert!

water and oxygen. oh, water and oxygen...

Water and oxygen. These are the two most necessary molecules to human beings. For those who synthesize nanocrystals in oils, like me, or like you, water and oxygen could be detrimental.

When you talk about synthetic skills, the dewater and drying process are the most important skills. Some reactions that go well under a pure inert condition would produce just a piece of junk under a small amount of oxygen or water. By just knowing little tips to make your reaction conditions better, you will be recognized as a chemist with an excellent synthetic skill!

Synthesis! That is what I am talking about here!

Here, I listed several techniques that have been useful to me when synthesizing inorganic nanomaterials.

(1) Adaptor with a stopcock 

I am always surprised that adaptors with a stopcock are so less known.  People should use a stopcock adaptor!
You can buy it in here

For example, when you want to use your dried solution for the next week and you do not want to keep it with the Schlenk line for a long time, this works better.  Even normal molecules like oleic acid or oleylamine, I dry under vacuum and use it for later when necessary.  

(2) Glove box

The glove box is the must when you handle very oxygen- or water-sensitive chemicals.

(3) freeze-pump-thaw

The freeze-pump-thaw is good when you wanna dry low boiling point solvent! This is a nice SOP. https://depts.washington.edu/eooptic/linkfiles/Freeze_Pump_Thaw.pdf

Or if you like a video here is an excellent YouTube video

There are more techniques, such as molecular sieves, distillation, and recrystallization of chemicals. I hope this post would be a good starting point for your explore for further reaction tips!

Good luck with a pure reaction!

XRD for nanocrystals

Cool XRD instrument

Humans can perceive 400–700 nm electromagnetic waves. We call it “see.” Although humans cannot see the circulation of light, some insects can see the polarity of light. I am wondering who is the sexiest person if we could see the circulation of light, or if we have different ranges of wavelengths. Probably the sexiest person in human society might not be so sexy in a world where the circulation of light can be seen. The perspective of our lives will be literally changed.

If we could see X-ray, we may not have to use X-ray scanning at hospitals. Although we cannot see X-rays with our eyes, we can detect them using a detector to see the molecular structures and nanostructures. The physics behind X-ray techniques are surprisingly easy compared with its benefits.

Although I cannot lecture how it works in this blog post, I listed famous things that you need to master and the important papers that you want to read if you study the nanochemistry field.

10 Important Concepts to Know

Bragg equation, Scherrer equation, 2theta-theta, instrumental factors, basics of powder XRD, crystallography, right-hand rules, space group selection rules, diffraction intensity, atomic scattering factor:

Five Selected Papers

1)             Forster S. et al. J. Phys. Chem. B 2005, 109, 1347-1360


2)             Brown, P. J. et al. International Table of Crystallography 2006. 6.1 Intensity of DiffractedIntensity Form factor, structural factor, GISAXS, single crystallography

3)             Jones, M. R.; C. Mirkin., et al. Nature Materials 9, 913–917 (2010).

4)             Förster, S. et al. Nature Materials 6, 888 – 893 (2007).

5)             Cameron F. Holder and Raymond E. Schaak. ACS Nano 20191377359-7365

Good luck on your better perspective of your materials!