pretty pictures, continued

Well, I don't think that anyone really intended to start anything, but the past few weeks have been filled with lots of nice photos from the lab.[1] Beth Halford of C&EN is probably responsible, what with her coverage of the MRS Science as Art competition.[2] Then there was Mitch's post with a video clip of some of his funny-looking non-carbon-based stuff. Kyle threw in some colorful photos of a nice-looking column and some pretty blue crystals. Even Liberal Arts Chemist contributed a photo from a while before I was born of a gaseous blue compound.

We've been planning this for a while, actually, and after a little arguing back and forth (and a little "what does THAT look like?"), Excimer and I agreed upon five compounds that are carbon-based and absolutely gorgeous. The one caveat was that we had to be able to find or take a decent picture of each of them. So, without rambling too much, here they are!

--Copper phthalocyanine.
Admittedly, there is an icky metal in it. It really shouldn't be surprising that something with "copper" in the name should be bright and colourful. Still, there's a nice aromatic ring structure there, and you know how much we love flat things here.

--GFP (green fluorescent protein). As much as we absolutely loathe biology, this stuff is kinda cool. You can use it to make glow-in-the-dark bunnies, like this one. The structure is interesting also, with the chromophore stuck in the middle of the protein.

--Grubbs catalyst I. Not only is it pretty, it's useful! (Never mind the ruthenium and all those other atoms there. There's also carbon, so we can include it in the list.) We also did a hero-worship post on this a while back.

--PTCDA (perylene tetracarboxylic dianhydride). This is one of the fluffiest compounds I've ever seen. I also have yet to discover a solvent in which it will dissolve, save for perhaps molten imidazole and conc sulfuric.

--TIPS pentacene. At least one of our readers is intimately familiar with these beautiful blue crystals, or so I hear. It absorbs light so intensely that a very tiny amount will turn a lot of solvent blue. Truth be told, almost everything in this guy's lab right now should be on this list.


In all fairness, these are just the compounds we could take or find pictures for. Excimer really, really wanted quinacridone on the list, but it isn't in either of our labs. Enjoy the pictures for now--both of us are traveling a lot within the next week, so you have more fluff to look forward to before we manage to find some time to think about actual chemistry.[3] At least it will be bright and colorful fluff, though.

EDIT: Comments are fixed now. I was wondering why you were all so quiet.

Thanks to liquidcarbon for bringing that to my attention.

[1] Alright, this was supposed to go up a week or two ago. I've been busy.

[2] Full disclosure: The bouquet of anthradithiophene was synthesized by a killer synthetic chemist who is mercifully quick with a fire extinguisher but doesn't like it when I steal his glassware.

[3] One of us has been spending too much time in the lab lately and has been running columns in her dreams for the past several nights. She would rather take a break from thinking about chemistry, at least while awake and not in the lab.