From: Dr. Gregory R. Cook (grcook$##$plains.NoDak.edu)
Date: Thu Jul 22 1999 - 12:35:48 EDT
There has been a lot of discussion about sodium chunks vs sodium wires vs
potassium, etc. etc. For THF, we have found that simply using sodium as a
fine dispersion in oil (40% wt from Aldrich) works the best. We no longer
pre-dry our THF. We us freshly opened anhydrous bottles and it works well.
You don't need to add so much sodium. Just enough of the dispersion to
turn it blue. If the ketyl color disappears, it is usually sufficient to
add small amounts of the sodium. IMHO, this is safer than messing around
with potassium.
________________________________________
Dr. Gregory R. Cook
Assistant Professor
Synthetic Organic Chemistry
Department of Chemistry
North Dakota State University
Fargo, ND 58105-5516
Office (701) 231-7413
lab (701) 231-7117
Fax (701) 231-8831
I N T E R N E T
________________
grcook$##$plains.nodak.edu
http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/instruct/grcook/
_________________________________________
32nd Great Lakes Regional Meeting, June 4-7, 2000. Fargo, North Dakota
http://www.chem.ndsu.nodak.edu/glrm
"He who is afraid of asking is ashamed of learning"
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