Organic Chemistry
Assisting and supporting the work of organic chemists around the world
DWK Life Sciences manufactures one of the most comprehensive ranges of laboratory consumables available to support the organic chemistry workflow. With a wealth of experience in this area, we also provide information and insights on how to optimise your processes.
DWK Life Sciences is one of the very few glass manufacturers in the world to operate a complete value-added chain from the glass melting process, for the production of laboratory glassware from its constituent raw materials, right through to glass forming and processing. Our company applies knowledge, skills and expertise acquired over more than 100 years of glassmaking to manufacture a range of glass products of the highest quality and performance. Utilising a range of manufacturing techniques, from state-of-the-art automatic production technology through to the hand manipulation and glass working skills of our experienced glassblowers, we are able to provide our customers with precision glassware suitable for the most demanding applications.
Some of the manufacturing techniques and technologies used in the production of our laboratory glassware include the melting of 3.3 expansion borosilicate glass from constituent raw materials, lampworking, molding, shaping, latheworking, grinding of joints, calibration of volumetric products in a ISO 17025 accredited calibration laboratory, printing and annealing.
Organic Chemistry Workflow
DWK Life Sciences manufactures and supplies one of the most comprehensive ranges of laboratory glassware, plasticware and accessories available to assist and support the work of organic chemists around the world. The DWK range includes high quality products that are designed to enhance and simplify every stage of the organic chemistry workflow from sample preparation through to cleaning down your glassware.
Sample Preparation
Sample preparation in organic chemistry can be as varied as ensuring you have clean, dry glassware to accurately weighing sensitive reagents into an appropriate container and purifying reactants and solvents, in some cases in a time sensitive manner.
Apparatus Preparation
In this basic but critical step, the apparatus is prepared for the reaction. Using the correct apparatus for your reaction and ensuring its safe assembly can make the difference between the perfect reaction and a nightmare scenario. Choosing the right joint type is critical in ensuring a leak-free seal whilst adequately securing the setup with joint clips and clamps is important for safely securing the assembly.
Reaction
The reaction can take minutes to hours to complete and constant attention must be maintained in case of stalling, product decomposition or no reaction at all. Stirring continuously throughout the experiment is important in addition to monitoring the reaction progress by TLC, GC or NMR. When complete, the reaction is quenched.
Workup
The isolation of the raw product is the goal of workup and is achieved, for example, by filtration, extraction, distillation or pH precipitation. The workup is very crucial and can be simple, such as the removal of the solvent, or more complicated for certain compounds, e.g. volatile, water-soluble, charged at high or low pH or unstable. In either case, it requires precise mastery of the working methodology to achieve the best possible product yield.
Analysis
Analytical methods such as NMR, IR and mass spectroscopy as well as HPLC and GC are used to obtain characterisation data for product identification. This first characterisation step of organic compounds is often a 1H NMR spectrum. This determines whether the reaction was successful and complete and whether the desired product needs further purification. The complete characterisation, especially of complex organic compounds, requires a variety of different analytical techniques.
Cleaning Down
Clean glassware is essential in organic chemistry. Over time, dirty glassware becomes more difficult to clean and ground glass stoppers can freeze, therefore, immediate cleaning is a must. This includes degreasing ground glass joints and rinsing glassware with an appropriate solvent to remove attached substances.
