7/13/2022
Hello! This month has been a very busy and exciting month for my research. I am in the later stages of my synthesis plan for creating the three-state molecular switches, which means the molecules I am attempted have never been successfully made. This makes my work more difficult, but very rewarding.
My Plan for June
In my last blog I mentioned that I was successful in a Suzuki type reaction. After this was successfully done, my goal was to remove the protecting group, perform an ethylation reaction, and then close the ring. The biggest hurdle I have encountered during this research is having enough starting material to perform the new reactions. Since all my reactions build upon each other, I have to go through my entire synthesis plan to have enough material to do a reaction. After a month of trial and error, I was successful in all three of these reactions. The molecules I am working on lately have all been very colorful, which is unusual for organic type molecules. You can see in the picture below how the color progresses throughout the reactions.
My Newly Made Molecules
Progress Thus Far...
The picture above shows all the new molecules that I have created this summer. Once our entire synthesis plan is complete, we will have synthesized 13 completely new molecules. These will all have to be characterized via melting point, carbon nmr, proton nmr, etc.… in order to be published. The first white molecule and second yellow molecule were synthesized in June, while the other three were completed this month. The last orange colored picture is one of our four final switches. It is very fluorescent when in a solvent, which is very promising for the other molecules since this switch is theorized to be the least fluorescent of all the molecules. I have progressively been getting more excited about this research with these successful reactions and the completion of one of our end goal molecules made my entire month. Since the rest of the molecules have a very similar reaction route to this molecule, I am very confident that the rest of the reactions will work given enough time.
Expectations for the School Year
I am currently in the process of performing the second Suzuki coupling, which used a nitrile top (CN) in place of the nitro group (NO2). A picture of the impure product is below. Due to the success of the synthesis of the one molecular switch, I have high hopes that I will be able to complete at least two of our final molecules and finish our entire synthesis plan within the year. My mentor has been very supportive this summer and we are both extremely proud of the work we have accomplished in just two months.
My Nitrile Containing Compound
