Photo Challenge: Day #12

Most of you already know that I am a lab tech at a pharmaceutical development company. I took some pictures today around the lab, so you could kind of get a glimpse into my usual work day.

We start with this. These are SOME of the chemicals that we have in the lab. There are others in the hood, in cabinets, and on the other side of the counter.

There are several things that go on in the hood. The reactions are ran , "worked up" (extracted), and separated. When running a reaction, you are combining starting materials to make a new compound. The work up process is to get rid of any moisture that may be in the compound before it can be separated. We use TLC (thin layer chromatography) to determine where the compound is in reference to the starting materials. The long tube in the picture is a separation column. These are used to separate the compound of interest from any starting material left over after the reaction.

This is a rotary evaporator. It concentrates the samples by vacuuming the solvent out of the solution.

This is a vacuum pump used to dry the pure samples.

This is just a small glimpse into my work life. I hope you enjoyed!!