Happy Thanksgiving chem peeps! Going to work on the next organic video today and probably get started on the next prep video as well. Happily we have arrived at the point where the organic video and the prep video go together. Our next prep will be mercuric acetate from either elemental mercury or mercuric oxide. The next organic video will cover much more useful addition reactions to alkenes that don't have all that rearrangement business going on. One of those reactions is oxymercuration-demercuration which gives Markovnikov addition of hydroxyls to alkenes. It's a reaction that every single student taking organic chemistry in college learns about but it's one that is never done because of muh mercury disposal and muh university rules (and people pay money to learn chem from these people). So we are going to give that a shot and see if we can pull it off. I've never done it either but it doesn't look like it's all that difficult to do. I am going through my inventory looking at what alkenes I have that we could try it with. If any of our resident organic mad lads/ladettes have any tips or suggestions on how we can improve our chances of a successful prep in the lab using this reaction I would welcome them with open arms. Maybe people who go to more expensive schools actually get to see this reaction done. IDK. I went to a state university with the rest of the poor people. :-)