H. Latreille and M. Chavance lnstitut National des Sciences Appliqu6es d e Lyon 20, Avenue Albert-Einstein, 69 Villeurbanne, France
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An ~xcellentLaboratory Notebook
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Recently Tms JOURNAL gave a translation by Jones and Southwick' of the first works published, in French, by Victor Grignard "with effort to retain the flavor of Grignard's narrative-personal, critical, mildly humorous inspots . . .." At the Ecole Superieure de Chimie Industrielle de Lyon, we were very proud of having had this scholar as our former teacher and director. We had the privilege of meeting Roger Grignard, his son, also an alumnus of this school, who is now a chemist a t Progil S.A. He was extremely kind inlettingus see the numerouslahoratory notebooks of his father, especially the one in which Victor Grignard records that he saw for the first time an alkyl magnesium being formed (see figure, Tables 1 and 2). Immediately we photocopied the famous ''page 103" and gave a copy of it to each student. Now each year, the students study this observation which led to such an important discovery; therefore, they can better understand why we insist on following the procedures in their laboratow notebooks
Societe Chimique de France is going all out to celebrate in Lyon the centenary of the birth2 of Victor Grignard. 'JONES P. R.
AND
SOUTHWICK E., J. CHEM.EDUC.,47, 290
(147n)
2Centenaire Victor Grignard, May 11-14, 1971 Facult4 des Sciences de Lyon, 43, Boulevard du 11-novembre-1918.
1) The chemist describes immediately everything that he does and observes, even if, as Grignard puts it "it does not appear necessary for the purpose of my research" (cela ne me parait pas nkcessaire pour le but que je poursuk). 2) He does not say anything that he cannot prove, for example Grignard draws a line through "MgIs" which he wrote first, in order to write more simply "a brown deposit" (un d@Ot bwn). 3) what he crosses out should remain readable. 4) The description must be such that if the writer should suddenly be called away, then any other chemist would be able to continue or duplicate the same experiment. 5 ) The notebook should be written in the first person and in the present tense. 6) The author's name should be cleadv written on the Damr in rhr i d r r thnr credit n.ay Iw eiven where rredir i.; due. 7 E d . p w r .hwlJ I,r nu~nhercdn d thvrr.4nnM lw no blnrok ipnwi sc, tl.ar thr u l t r i.as. Iwc..r~l,1~.ihcdwithllut 1111111,1.
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These students who study this are not all going to major in chemistry: they must choose one of the nine possible options offered by this Institute. However, the rules that they learn here can be put to good use later, and can help them to better understand why the
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Journol of Chemical Education
The page from tho notebook of Victor Grignard on w h i d he describes his R-1 discovery of the formation of an orgonornognesium compound.
Table 1.
Printed French Text (Exactly Line for Line)
.. .J'ai conatatd qu'en chaufant de la tournure de M g avee de l'wdure d'isobutyle, le M g est t d s rapidement attaqud. De plus, s i aussitdt que l'attaque a eommencd m inlroduit dc l'dlhe~anhydre, la rdadion se cmlinue trds vive et M g est ~apidementdissous en m2me p~oduitun d@dt brun temps qu'il se ddpose M g I a en trds jaible quanlitd S i on emp place l'iodum par le bromure, la ?dadion met plus 2ongtemps d partir, mais e l k est m o r e trks vim et se continue t r b bien dans l'ether anhydre. Le magndsium isobutyle n'est pas a c r i t et p o w le moment, je ne m'occupe pas de l'isoler, cela ne me paraissand pas ndcessaire pour le but que je poursuis. m u n i d'un rdjviq6rant ascendant et d'une boule d brome Dana un ballon de 1 litrelje chaufe avec rdfrig&and.aseendant et d 1'6bullitwn 1 mole C'HeB7 (157 g ~ awe ) SO gr de M g en t m ~ n u T e . La rdaetion ne partant pas (dam u n essai en petit, e l k s'dtait dkla?de au bout d'un quart d ' h r e ) j'ai ajoUe 1 / 1 0 mol C4H91,mais malgrd cela la rdactia ne s'est amorcde &clarde qu'au bout de deuz heures.
Table 2.
Translation, (Exactly Line for Line)
. I have noted that when heating turnings of Mg with isobutyl iodide, the Mg is verv rauidlv attacked. Then. if as soon as
there appears a brown deposit at the same time MgIZprecipitates in a. small amount. If one replaces the iodide with the bromide, the reaction takes longer to begin, but it is also very active and proceeds very well in anhydrous ether. The magnesium iodide is not described m d for the moment I am not concerned with isolating it, that does not appear necessary for the purpose of my research. fitted with ascending reflux condenser and with a globe sepa~atoryfunnel In a 1 litre flask11 heat with arcending reflux'condenser and to the boiling point 1 mole C4HoBr(137 gr) with 30 gr of Mg
in spite of this the reaction started onlv after two hours.
Volume 48, Number 7 2, December 7 977
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