2/08/2007

Mystery...funnel?

Here's an interesting picture of something-or-other in a Buchner funnel:



But what is it? Anyone wanna take a guess? (Come on, guys. This one should be easy.)

I'll post the answer tomorrow or Saturday...

functionalized (well, we hope so) carbon nanotubes

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

activated carbon

Ψ*Ψ said...

Nope! (Not exciting enough to merit a picture.) Try again :)

MJenks said...

Zinc powder?

Anonymous said...

magnesium dioxide?

Anonymous said...

i mean manganese dioxide, whoops.

Ψ*Ψ said...

Contains no zinc or magnesium.

Anonymous said...

Shot in the dark....is it a tetraacetylated b-glycoside? before recrystallization from EtOH? Twice?

Anonymous said...

20 questions?
Does it contain Palladium?

Mitch

autobahn said...

You have clearly synthesised concrete. Build something before it hardens in the funnel.

Anonymous said...

Looks like carbon nanotubes to me -but I doubt you have apparatus to make them. So my guess is something highly condensed polyaromatic (and poorly soluble) such as pentacene.

Russ said...

Hexaphenylbenzene?

Excimer said...

haha, it's not hexaphenylbenzene. Hexaphenylbenzene's a pretty boring white solid.

Ψ*Ψ said...

Milkshake wins! Functionalized carbon nanotubes.
...I am a little unsettled by his guesses, though, since they sound like things I might actually be working on. Are you stalking me, milkshake?

Anonymous said...

No stalking - but you work on a material science project, and it is probably something carbon based, so the choices are limited

One thing - I am amazed how much of that stuff you are actualy making. I have seen carbon nanotubes only on pictures but usualy in tiny quantities, never in multigram amount.

Russ said...

Huh. I made hexaphenylbenzene (many years ago though, as an undergrad), and I thought I remembered it being a dark purple (almost black) solid. Am I maybe thinking of the precursor - tetraphenylcyclopentadienone?

Excimer said...

Yes you are, Russ. Check out an earlier post I did on the reaction.

Ψ*Ψ said...

It's actually not my project but a labmate's. (I'm glad my stuff is a little more soluble than that.) Most of what the group does is on the scale of a gram or so.

Chemgeek said...

That's a lot of nanotubes! How many total meters of tube are we talking?

Anonymous said...

What temperature do your nanotubes decompose?

Ψ*Ψ said...

I don't know...they're not mine!

Anonymous said...

I know, but I was looking for a general answer. Nothing specific

Anonymous said...

Wow, that was a terrific yield of CNTs. I hope they were pure.. you (or whoever made it) would make a fortune.