A Perfect Reaction

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  1. You find a procedure that worked on a system very similar to yours, and all functional group in your molecule will be compatible with the reaction conditions. The procedure is described in detail by a respected research group, and has been referenced often by others.
  2. Your reactant is commercially available. The reagents you need are cheap, and you have as much as you need in the lab already. You know exactly how long the reaction will take. You know the appropriate reaction scale to carry out (even better, that scale involves 0.2- 1.0 g of reactant). You will not need to leave the lab before the reaction is complete. The product is going to be stable and able to be stored indefinitely.
  3. You do not make errors in your calculations, you do not need special equipment, you have clean, dry glassware, and you do not need to purify reactant, reagents or solvent.
  4. Combination of reactants is simple, and goes smoothly. The reaction is homogenous, and stirs easily. You can follow the progress of the reaction by periodic analysis using simple TLC or GC, and can stay with the reaction until starting material is consumed. The reaction goes to completion, to give one new product.
  5. No quench is necessary.
  6. For workup, you need only remove solvent.
  7. TLC of your product using a common solvent system gives an Rf of 0.3. A crude 1H NMR spectrum indicates only your desired compound with few or no impurities. You can easily identify an optimal method for purification.
  8. No purification step is required, but you can filter quickly through silica to obtain analytically pure product.
  9. You obtain a 1H NMR spectrum of a pure compound without solvent peaks. Each peak can be assigned to a proton of your target compound, and the integrations are consistent with expectations. Other spectra can be obtained without complications.
  10. You have written an exact description of your experiment in your notebook, and another chemist can reproduce what you have done without further consultation, on the first try.