Polymerization

Discovered that the compound I synthesized last week had polymerized. This compound has a retention factor of 0.5 when developed on a silica gel thin layer chromatography plate in a 10% methanol in chloroform solvent system. This meant that it should readily dissolve in chloroform or methanol. However, all solvents, organic and inorganic, from non-polar hexane to dichloromethane, chloroform and highly polar methanol and water, could not dissolve it at all.

This is no good news. First, there were as much as 300mg of the compound as I had scaled up this reaction. Second, the starting material is limited and takes a long time to synthesize. Third, this will delay work in MBU for coupling the compound to the proteins as I will had to synthesize more of the compound and make sure that it stays intact.

Sometimes, we are very much like the compound that has polymerized. After going through the years in life, weathered by blazing suns and stormy rains, we simply polymerize. After some time, nothing will hurt us anymore as we get immune to the ups and downs in life.

As always, there's two sides to everything. A polymerized compound is good to be made into things like plates and utensils, where you need it strong and tough to be functional. (Imagine eating your plastic plates and utensils together with your food...)

On the other hand, a polymer is also less miscible and flexible. It is harder to induce a reaction from a polymerized compound and you cant use it to catalyze other reactions. Also, it will usually decompose before it reaches its boiling point.

One should be strong enough to withstand the highs and lows in life. However, to live life fully, we should not allow ourselves to polymerize...