Should've Taken a Picture

C₆₀ buckyballs are awesome. They dissolve in toluene to give purple (!) solutions!

Too bad I can't really take pictures during lab classes, otherwise I'd so do it today. Since the apparatus is pretty much all set up, and we students don't actually synthesize the buckyballs, the experiment itself is pretty straightforward*: CV of C₆₀, followed by MO calculations using things like MM+ and extended Huckel method**. Not much, really. But, ooh, pretty colours!

A link to an image online here. Buckyballs in toluene in the furthest left vial. It's nothing like seeing the solution in real life, though. So pretty!

*Less so that the procedure suggests, though. Little things can really screw up the reaction; for example, adding acetonitrile too quickly causes the supporting electrolyte to clump in this nasty, brown mass, instead of well, dissolving.
**It is at times like these that I realize just how awesome my computational chemistry class is. A little familiarity with programs such as Hyperchem (i.e. just having spent a couple of hours with it) goes a long way towards efficiency in using the said program.