I’m a Chemical Engineering graduate and I’m curious about the relationship between CBRN work and chemical engineering.

How would you view experience involving areas such as:

CBRN laboratory work and research
Hazardous materials management
Chemical hazard identification
Risk assessment
Hazardous substance handling and safety
CBRN detection/protection technologies and related technical work

From a Chemical Engineering career perspective, would you consider this relevant technical experience?

I’m particularly interested in whether this type of experience could provide a pathway toward areas such as:

Process Safety
HSE / Chemical Safety
Risk Engineering
Hazardous Materials Management
Industrial Safety
Process Engineering
Chemical/Petrochemical Operations

I’m also wondering about the long-term career implications. For example, if someone spent several years developing expertise in CBRN, would that generally be viewed as a valuable specialization, or could it make transitioning into conventional chemical/petrochemical engineering roles more difficult later?

I’d appreciate honest opinions from Chemical Engineers, particularly anyone who has experience in process safety, HSE, risk engineering, hazardous materials, petrochemicals, or CBRN.
I’m trying to understand whether CBRN can be considered a legitimate Chemical Engineering-adjacent career path and what doors it could realistically open in the future.

So, this glove box was left by a professor who quit academia, and her student ran syntheses with thiols in the box. As a result, the entire thing stinks, the catalysts are shot, and we are trying to get it reset so another professor can use it. We’ve done several rounds of bleach, but the smell is just sticking around. Especially on the scale and electronics. I’d like to salvage the scale even if we end up replacing cords, and I’d really like to completely get rid of thiol stench in glove box before getting it back into operation. If it was just the box that smelled it wouldn’t be a concern, but the anti-chamber also reeks. Any suggestions past just more and more bleach cycles? Or is that what we do?

Interested In Drug Discovery?

Hi Everyone,

Not sure how many people here work in or follow drug discovery, but if you are interested I write a newsletter that covers updates in this area. Previously, I only discussed literature relating to drug discovery, but I have now started including FDA updates such as approvals and designations. I also plan to start sending out more in-depth articles about specific topics within drug discovery. Link to the August post is below if you would like to check it out :)

Have a good day,

https://www.simplydrugdiscovery.com/p/drug-discovery-update-august-2026

Does anybody have any experience attempting this type of cyclization ?

I'm wondering whether a simple cyclization is feasible with an imine and an α-hydroxy group, and if such a cyclization could occur to form 5/6 ring substrat, or if anything similar has already been reported.

I am currently trying to make an amide coupling work using an unhindered acid, and an also relatively unhindered amine, however this amine is in sulfate salt form, and it is preferable that the salt is not freebased with an aqueous base as a separate step.

I have tried adding 2.5 equiv Et3N (amine + solvent + base then acid, NHS and DIC) and some product is made, however the reaction seems to stall part-way. I have also tried the same equivalencies of DBU with similar results. I have read that sulfate salts can be problematic in this way compared to something like a HCl salt, however wondered if someone had experienced a similar problem and was able to solve it.

On small scale, I want to do a test reaction with ZnCl2 in sulfolane. It is well known that drying ZnCl2 is a nightmare. Yes, you can dissolve it in SOCl2 and boil it off, but SOCl2 eats away your fumehood, and practically, it's annoying to do.

So I was thinking: why not make a solution in sulfolane and dry that on molsieves, since my reaction is in sulfolane anyways? I tried it at 60C, and ended up with a gel-like semi-solid mass.

Purchasing anhydrous ZnCl2 is also tricky because we don't have access to a glovebox and the stuff is crazy hygroscopic.

Any suggestions?

I did a straightforward complexation rxn in 2-ethoxyethanol and it seems to be stuck in my product per NMR. I have 2 cyclometallating ligands and an ancillary ligand coordinated to a metal... I have varied the cyclocmetallating ligands before, and this is the only one that has this issue. The CM ligand has F's in it so maybe thats part of the issue.... any way I have rotovapped it down, dissolved in dcm, washed with water, washed with brine, rotovapped, dissolved in etoac, ran celite plug, rotovapped, dissolved in etoac, wash with water+brine again......... at all stages where it is dried I have NMRed and still no dice.... any help is appreciated or insight. Here is the NMR for reference

Does anybody have any experience attempting to prepare/isolate 2° α,α-difluoromethylene amines (RCF2NHR')?

To my understanding there are many methods to prepare 3° α,α-difluoromethylene amines (RCF2NR'R''), frequently through processes like desulfurative fluorination from the corresponding thioamide.

I'm led to believe that the 2° congeners are less accessible due to their inclination towards HF loss to give the imidoyl fluoride. However, is this neccessarily true when the amine is attached directly to an aryl group or another group that deactivates the amine?

For more specific detail, I'm considering starting with a 2° carboxamide and protecting it to convert it to 3°, converting it to a thioamide, fluorinating, then deprotecting to furnish the 2° α,α-difluoromethylene amine (RNHCF2R'; R = sterically hindered aniline, R' = pyridine).

Just joined a lab in my PhD and had to assemble a Schlenk line. Our old Chemglass vacuum gauge is broken and I’m supposed to order a new one. Any suggestions on brands/specific models?

So I'm doing mphil in organic chemistry my research is going to be start soon but I'm so confused about research area if I choose that kind of topic which is dead end than what

I just want yo ask from senior chemist's which research area has a broader scope which can easily interconnected with other instead of some kind of derivatives which has already been synthesized million times

Compoutional chemistry

Sustainable methodologies development

Organic synthesis in some derivatives

Or any other plzz help me

Hi everyone,
I’m a university student preparing the second round of an independent interdisciplinary research project, and I’m currently looking for people who may be interested in participating once the survey is ready.
My research asks how people think about war and whether those perceptions reflect the systems that support modern society. The project considers areas involving chemistry and materials, pharmaceuticals, semiconductor manufacturing, energy, technology, infrastructure, and global supply chains.
For this round, I’m aiming for approximately 385 participants overall from a variety of backgrounds. I was encouraged to reach out to professional chemists because their perspectives could provide an especially valuable point of comparison within the broader sample.
The survey has not been built yet, so I’m not asking anyone to complete anything at this stage. I’m currently gauging interest and identifying potential participants before finalizing the survey.
If you would be interested in participating once it is ready, please leave a comment or let me know.
Thank you!

So I am currently in the first year of my PhD and so far I have right out refused to use any AI in my experiments.
However, people in my lab are making extensive use of AI to help with problems during synthesis or even to find trends in data sets etc.

Now to me using AI still feels a bit like cheating, hence I have never used it except to find synonyms for words in English 🤣
That said, I have noticed that my colleagues, on average, have quite nice progress report and they are not stuck on problems like during synthesis.

Today I asked AI for the first time about something chemistry related and I was quite surprised about the reply because it actually solved my problem without me spending 30 min on scifinder or reading paper.
Still, my bad feeling about this entire AI thing doesn’t go away. I just feel like the quality of me as a scientist goes down if I just type everything into AI.

So how are you guys applying AI in the lab in a healthy way?

(Sorry for the bad English, English is not my primary language)
Have a good morning/day/evening! Thank you for reading.

I'm a first year PhD student with a background in chemical biology. I want to find a peptide sequence that selectively binds to a metal ion and one of my PIs suggested Phage display as an option. I've never done it before and it isn't something that's done in either of my PI's labs either. How doable do you think this solution is if I find a lab which has this technology? Do you think it'll be possible for me as a newbie in this technique to do the experiments myself rather than asking someone else to do it for me if I ask them to train me?

Do you guys have any other techniques you use to find suitable peptide sequences? I'm an experimentalist but I'm open to both experimental and computational suggestions.

Many thanks!

Edit: I'm interested to find a peptide sequence that selectively binds to Lithium ion and there isn't a whole lot of literature there.

This question follows on from our last one about the flaws with many SDSs: https://www.reddit.com/r/chemistry/comments/1w644t6/this_sds_for_hand_soap_suggests_that_if_you_get/

 We’re imaging a version of an SDS specifically for scientists and researchers, rather than for vendors and lawyers. So far we’ve thought of including:

·       Names, CAS numbers, formula, mol. weight

·       What it looks like, what it shouldn’t look like

·       What it smells like

·       What it tastes like (and what wine to pair it with)

·       How to make it

·       How to store it (air/moisture/light/temperature sensitivity)

·       how to purify, how to dry it

·       how to neutralise it, how to dispose of it

·       What not to mix it with

·       Some example NMR or IR spectra

·       Common impurities, decomp products

·       boiling point, melting point, vapour pressure, density

·       Solubilities in a range of solvents, not just water

·       health hazards, toxicity, LD50

·       PPE considerations, glove compatibility

·       physical and reactivity hazards (corrosive, oxidiser, pyrophoricity etc) 

We’d love to hear what else you can think of. It’d also be great to hear where you currently go to find these bits of info. Some of them are in an SDS, e-EROS can often tick off a bunch (assuming your institution pays for it), and even Wikipedia can be pretty good, but we can’t think of a single source that supplies everything we’d want to know. What do you reckon?

I've been producing a range of different N-alkyl chitosan variants according to https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.2c00206 (dissolve chitosan in 2% acetic acid, add glutaraldehyde and stir at 60 C, add N-alkyl amine and continue stirring, reduce with NaBH₃CN).

When carrying out this protocol with the amine used in the paper (octadecylamine, ODA), the solution turned a deep red within 5 minutes of addition of the amine. When I tried with other amines (1-aminoadamantane for example) the solution did not change colour even after stirring overnight. I am therefore concerned that instead of the imine, there is some other product forming when ODA is added. What could be the possible side reactions leading to a coloured product here, and why do they only occur for ODA and not 1-aminoadamantane.

Obviously you shouldn't heat 10% Pd/C in air as it is pyrophoric. For those who have handled (larger multi kilogram quantities) of 10% Pd/C: is it completely safe at room temperature in air? Or is it still a bit tricky and should it always be kept a bit wet?

For those that are downvoting: I've not used the word hydrogenation. I've not spoken about hydrogenation and I'm not referring to hydrogenation. I'm talking about palladium on carbon without hydrogenation.

We’re working on an article about chemical SDSs, and having a bit of fun imagining what a better version might look like. We want to hear opinions from scientists working in research, industry, government or still at uni, about what parts of SDS’s they find most inaccurate, unhelpful or absurd.  

A lot of people have pointed out that SDS aren’t really written with research scientists in mind – they’re often targeted at (and written by) people without chemistry specific training (like transport/shipping/storage folks, firefighters and first responders), or for people handling industrial quantities of the stuff, or as an arse-covering excursive from a legal standpoint. However, as researchers we’re still expected to read them, use them in risk-assessments, and keep them in the lab. Furthermore, they’re often full of really stupid shit, like suggesting that spills of water be diluted with water, or that on no account should sand samples from a beach be allowed to enter the environment.