The Tour of Collective Wisdom presents:
Rookie Mistakes


Tour the Mistakes

Equipment Reagents Setup Quenching Rxns Workup Chromatography
Distillation Spectroscopy Cleaning Record-Keeping Accidents Miscellaneous



Top Ten Mistakes


MistakeNumber of rookies who have done this
Tried to drain sep. funnel with stopper still in 260
Set up reaction under Ar, added in reagents and forgot to add stir bar 226
Poured a reaction mixture into a separating funnel without closing the tap. Recovered reaction mixture from the bottom of the fume hood. 219
Forgot to pre-weigh your round bottom flask. 218
Didn't label a flask. One week later, have NO idea what is inside. 204
Handled volatile, smelly and/or toxic solvents or reagents (benzene, carbon disulfide, acrylates, etc.) outside of the fume hood. 203
Solvent run all the way to the top of TLC plate 196
Bumped solution on rotovap. 187
Sniffed noxious compound/gas/solvent, not waft! 187
Pick up something from the floor and while doing so, dropping the contents out of the front pocket of your lab-coat (usually NMR tubes) 158


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