I was following a protocol from a journal paper to do a reaction but it didnt work. Whats the possible reasion

Question

i did it many times

I even bought new reagents because I thought my old reagents were old. It is a 2-day reflux reaction, and the solvent keeps evaporating.

Answer 1

Sometimes it has to do with the quality of chemicals, or that the original scientist left out a step by accident (or to keep his/her secret), or sometimes even if you did the reaction many times you might have made an error. Check all of your calculations, or get a buddy to check them for you (math errors have done in a lot of science over the years). As a final step you could try to contact one of the authors of the journal article. In my experience, scientists like to talk about thier research. :)

Answer 2

The purity of your reagents may be in question. The protocol could be in error. Write the journal or the author. See if other people are having the same problem.

Answer 3

No way to really answer your question if you don't provide more information. What journal, issue, pages? Author, title, reaction, etc? What happened, what were you expecting to happen? By the way it is "reason" and not reasion. Minor typo.

If the reaction is used in making drugs or explosives, you might be disappointed in your answers here.

Answer 4

1. you did it wrong.
2. you're purity of reagents isn't what it's supposed to be.
3. the journal neglected to mention one little step they did that makes the difference.

email the person in charge and ask them what they did. most will help you out if they can

Answer 5

Your best bet is to contact the author of the paper. There might be other factors in their experimental setup that are important, but not included in the paper. Also, it's possible that the paper had an error in it, but don't say that to the author...