I used a condensor to reflux a reaction and water from the glass got into my oil bath and created an emulsion. How can I separate this to get a clear oil bath again? Or should I just toss the oil and replace. Feels wasteful. I covered my reaction with foil to try to keep the water out and it still got in.
I'm curious to hear about everyone's professional experience on a career in chemistry with a masters vs a PhD. How difficult is it to find a job? What are the positions like? What are the pay differences? Work life balance differences? I'm talking about industry.
I am reacting an aldehyde with a hydrazide. The product is forming in very small quantities, and not reacting completely with the limiting reagent. I want to try to remove water from the reaction as it refluxes, but Dean Stark is not possible because the solvent mixture is DMSO and acetonitrile and the reaction does not go into water immiscible solvents. I tried adding mol sieves into the reaction flask but they got ground down to a powder by the stir bar and contaminated the product. I am not sure about adding magnesium sulfate, as the desired use for the ligands is for metal complexation and I am worried about contamination with metals. Also my product is a solid, I'm not sure how to separate it from the mgso4. My reaction is acid catalyzed with acetic acid as well. Any advice would be great.