The laboratory book

Laboratory books (the lab book ) should be hard-backed and suitable for long term storage. It is desirable that the pages are numbered, and that the first few sides are kept free for a Table of Contents. 

It is useful to divide the lab book into two the right hand side being reserved for the experimental write-up, whereas the left hand side can be used for calculations, notes, gel photographs and similar additions. Scraps of paper, paper towels or even 

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Describe, for the tenth time, an instrument not covered in the laboratory book, and you write a procedure. Explain, again and again, operations that are in the book, and you get a set of notes. When these produce questions you revise until the students, not you, finally have it right. It you believe that writing is solidified speech—with the same pauses, the same cadences—then a style is set. And if you can still laugh, you write this book. 

This does not have to be so Why not build an uninterrupted stream of information from the producer (the bench chemist) to the consumer (the reader of a journal or book, or the scientist that puts a query into a database) It is quite clear that the producers of information knows best what experiments were done, what observations were made, what results have been obtained. They should put this information into electronic laboratory books, augmented with spectral data (that they can obtain directly from the analytical laboratory). From this electronic repository aU other information sources -manuscripts, journals, books, databases - could be filled, clearly sometimes by manual selection, but not by changing data ... 

For the production of this edition, we have made a thorough and critical revision of the whole contents of the book, based on our experience of its use in the laboratory and on the general advance in organic chemical practice. In addition to this general revision, however, we have extended the book in three main directions. 

It is regretted that the size of the volume has rendered the insertion of literature references impossible the Selected Bibliography (A,5) may partly compensate for this omission. Section numbers are now included in the headings of the pages—a feature introduced in response to requests by many readers. The volume comprises virtually at least three books under one cover, viz., experimental technique, preparations, and qualitative organic analysis. It should therefore continue to be of value as a one volume reference work in the laboratory. Students at all levels will find their requirements for laboratory work (excluding quantitative organic analysis) adequately provided for and, furthermore, the writer hopes that the book will be used as a source of information to supplement their theoretical studies. 

Laboratory procedures for proximate and ultimate analyses are given in the Annual Book of ASTM Standards (Sec. 5, American Society for Testing and Materials, Conshohocken, Pa., 1994) and in Methods of Analyzing and Testing Coal and Coke (U.S. Bureau of Mines Bulletin 638, 1967). 

The following books and reviews provide fuller details of the topics indicated in this chapter. The authors recommendations for excellent introductory and/or reference texts to the topics are indicated with. [For earlier bibliographies see Purification of Laboratory Chemicals, 4th Edn, ISBN 0750628391 (1996, hardback) and 0750637617 (1997, paperback). 

At Brookhaven National Laboratory, I wish to acknowledge the support, assiscince. discussions and suggestions with Robert Hall (coauthor on the first book), and Drs. Roben Ban, Ah Azairn, Robert Bari, John Boccio, Lewis Chu, John Lehner, Semyon Shteyngart, and Trevor f ra( Helen Todosow was very helpful for library assistance. 

The book is not a new edition of the Chemistry of Organic Fluorine Compounds but an update of the 1976 edition with literature coverage from 1972 to 1991 The structure of the original book has been preserved, and it is assumed that its users are familiar with the 1976 edition, which was reprinted by Ellis Horwood in 1992 and to which numerous references are made The book will be useful especially to organic fluorine chemists engaged in laboratory research... 

The task of preparing the text, examples, tables, and figures of the book was entrusted to TNG Prins Maurits Laboratory, Rijswijk, the Netherlands. The principal authors were all members of the Explosion Prevention Department of the Laboratory ... 

The main aspect of the job of the top floor person is to pump solvents or oil to various reactors and blenders. Instructions are issued on a job-card or by phone. The instructions are entered in a log book (which is kept by the top floor worker) and on a record card which has to be returned to the laboratory at the end of the shift. To prepare for pumping, protective clothing must be worn. After the required amoimt of solvent is set on the meter, the worker has to connect the meter and the pipeline with a hose and then open the valve on the pipeline (see Figure 7.10). Before starting the pump, the blender valve... 

As high technology continues to transform the modern biochemical laboratory, it is interesting to reflect on Linns Pauling s discovery of the u-helix. It involved only a piece of paper, a pencil, scissors, and a sick Linus Pauling, who had tired of reading detective novels. The story is told in the excellent book The Eighth Day of Creation by Horace Freeland Judson ... 

This book presents a unified treatment of the chemistry of the elements. At present 112 elements are known, though not all occur in nature of the 92 elements from hydrogen to uranium all except technetium and promethium are found on earth and technetium has been detected in some stars. To these elements a further 20 have been added by artificial nuclear syntheses in the laboratory. Why are there only 90 elements in nature Why do they have their observed abundances and why do their individual isotopes occur with the particular relative abundances observed Indeed, we must also ask to what extent these isotopic abundances commonly vary in nature, thus causing variability in atomic weights and possibly jeopardizing the classical means of determining chemical composition and structure by chemical analysis. 

This chapter began with the statement that we would find through experience what science is all about. Already you have had opportunities to do so in the laboratory. We see that science is man s systematic investigation of his environment. Chapter 1 has told how this investigation proceeds. The remainder of the book is concerned with those parts of this investigation that are carried out by chemists. Before going on to see what chemistry is, let us review your laboratory accomplishments so far with emphasis on the activities of science. 

G. N. Lewis died March 23, 1946, in the laboratory he loved, surrounded by the beakers and books that were the tools of his trade. He is remembered and respected by chemists the world over. 

Many modern instruments used in the analytical laboratory are interfaced with a computer and a printer provides a permanent record of the experimental data and the final result may even be given. This printout should be permanently attached to the observations page of the laboratory record book, and it should be regarded as normal practice to perform a rough calculation to confirm that the printed result is of the right order. 

One most often undertakes kinetic studies to develop an understanding of the reaction mechanism. Other motives sometimes apply one can learn about the stability, or shelf life, of a material and the practicality of preparing a given substance in the laboratory or commercially. This book is directed toward individuals who wish to be able to read in their own fields of interest the scientific literature that uses these techniques for the study of chemical reactions and the deduction of their mechanisms. It is also intended to be of use to those who plan to undertake these studies on their own. 

Although many industrial reactions are carried out in flow reactors, this procedure is not often used in mechanistic work. Most experiments in the liquid phase that are carried out for that purpose use a constant-volume batch reactor. Thus, we shall not consider the kinetics of reactions in flow reactors, which only complicate the algebraic treatments. Because the reaction volume in solution reactions is very nearly constant, the rate is expressed as the change in the concentration of a reactant or product per unit time. Reaction rates and derived constants are preferably expressed with the second as the unit of time, even when the working unit in the laboratory is an hour or a microsecond. Molarity (mol L-1 or mol dm"3, sometimes abbreviated M) is the preferred unit of concentration. Therefore, the reaction rate, or velocity, symbolized in this book as v, has the units mol L-1 s-1. 

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