What the Heck?

OK, so that wasn't the wittiest of titles I could've come up with. But in my defence, it's half nine in the p.m., and here I am in the lab, all on my lonesome and waiting for a TLC to complete so that I can decide if I should chuck in more reagents or just go home...

I haven't been posting much recently as things haven't really been working - these days I've been trying to synthesise a radical trap which I've not so lovingly dubbed "the bomb", not so lovingly since it refuses to be made.

At this moment in time, I'm attempting a Heck reaction. I say attempt, because every time I've tried a Heck reaction before, it's failed.

Once again, it went black...

Maybe I should stop being so surprised when a reaction involving palladium in it goes black.

My mini work-up pre TLC

In the time it's taken me to write this, my TLC has now completed and it looks like I do indeed have something that could very possibly be the product...dundundun! But let's not breathe yet - I should run a crude NMR just to verify.

Or, I could just go home and eat/drink/sleep.

Peace out, organics x