Carfentanil was an omnipotent opiate derivative, with a deadly potency in fact, and I simply had to have it. No matter that it was painful failure after painful failure, with abysmally low yields and poor stability. I physically enjoyed the pain it caused me, and the sleepless nights were part and parcel of the task at hand. Sleepless either because I was up all night, from lab bench to armchair to bench to armchair, or, lying in bed with a million chemicals visible in my eyes, running around and combining with each other.
Nucleophilic attacks, electrophilic attacks, curly arrows, protonations, oxidations, reductions, hydrolyses, conversions, covalent bonds, ionic bonds, hydrogen bonds. Pink, black, blue, white, Charlie, you name it, I did it. I am forced to admit, I became a much stronger scientist and chemist during this period, mainly because my drive was such that I was “on the job” 24/7, essentially.
There is something both worrying yet absolutely exciting about having work to do that can be carried on in your head, even when lying in bed at night. The bedroom ceiling became my blackboard, and I was able to test all sorts of things in what had become my virtual laboratory: my own head. Not bad, huh? De facto, three labs running all at the same time. The ivory tower, the basement and my head. It was only a matter of time, old boy, until the genius shone through.
The problem was the bloody phenylether group itself, you see. When I tried to stick on other alkyl or alkanyl “R” groups, it worked much better. But the yield from the hydrolysis of the nitrile to the corresponding amide, when R was phenylethyl, was just miserable. The old ball and chain heard my screams of pain at the end of these syntheses, let me tell you. I had so many pilot hydrolyses reactions in my head, in the notebooks and ongoing downstairs that it was becoming impossible to keep track of them all. But, after the best part of six months, and learning all the while, one of my hypotheses struck pure gold. Clearly, I cannot give exact amounts and temperatures and methods; I don’t want the DEA on my back too, now do we? Well, you do. But I don’t. Cabiche?
To cut a long story short (I lost my mind), I had to break it down into parts, slow it down so I could see all the molecules jumping around in front of my eyes, modify things, then go back to full speed and let it happen. Ergo, and to wit, a brilliant new hydrolysis step came into focus. I first converted the nasty nitrile into a formidable formamide, which was done with care and precision. Good yield. Next came a two step hydrolysis, firstly of the formamide into an imidate intermediate. Ya have heard of intriguing imidates now, haven’t you Charles? Wonderful creatures, in the right hands. Then, after that, a slow alkalization, to allow decomposition of the imidate into an amide. De facto, ending up as previously in a minute amount, if even detectable, of 1-ß-phenylethyl-(4-phenylamino)-4-piperidine carboxamide.
The process of distilling off excess methanol from the first hydrolysis step was slow, and I was not in the mood to rush anything. Time was a wasting, and rushing foolishly can lead to significantly more loss of precious time. So I had gone upstairs to nap in front of the TV for a suspense movie the ball and chain was watching, and I went out for the count for almost two hours straight.
The ball and chain woke me when she was turning off the TV to go to bed, and I was so sure of the usual flask of empty liquid that I almost went up with her. But I had to stop the distillation reaction, as always, so I went back down. Charles, Charles, Charles. Can you even begin to imagine the lightning bolt that shot right through me, from the floor up, when across the room I thought I saw something clouding my mixture? I turned the power off on my rotating flask, and turned away, almost too excited to look. I went and did a bit of clean up, as the place was a mess with various reactions in different stages of completion, and mess was something very rare for me. A good cook always cleans up as they move along, always. But I had been tired and the weekend was coming, so I had let things slide somewhat.
After some time, I couldn’t resist further, and I went back to my reaction vessel. Charlie, I literally cried out so loud that the bottles on the shelves rattled against each other; there, at the bottom of the flask, fallen down, out of solution, was the most pristine white precipitate I had ever seen! I was beside myself with joy. So much powder I could see if from across the room. It must be ten-fold more than usual, I thought. Praise be to He on holy high, I had f'ing done it!
“Jesus Christ, I almost called 911 from upstairs, you scared the you-know-what out of me! I was certain you had been attacked or something had fallen on you, and look at you, standing there with a stupid smile on your face!”
“Darling, darling…humble, snivelling, whimpering, sycophantic little puppy dog apologies to you. You ain’t gonna believe it! You know what I’ve been working on, all these months, which feel like years, well, come over here, you are going to be astounded. Totally. It’s unbelievable! Look at this, no don’t touch it, it’s too precious, just look at it!”
“What am I looking at? A stinky round glass thing, with horrific smelling liquid in it, and some white crap or salt at the bottom. You’re a genius honey, now I am going back to bed. You can tell me all about it in the morning. Night.”
A kiss on the cheek, and she was gone. I am not sure whether there is more pleasure in having a partner who is in the same line of work as you, and so fully understands the reasons and details of a major breakthrough, or whether it is actually sweeter with one who does not. There’s something more juicy about the latter, more of an inside joke, or a private club. Exclusivity. They can celebrate with you, without having to know what all the fuss is about.
Trust me, the old ball and chain didn’t know. Probably a good thing, as I was now within reach of the gold, and she didn’t need to know that the gold was actually an illicit material, one that would be worth huge amounts of money to the wrong hands. Charlie, if only I could transport you back to that night, and the appearance of a white solid in my flask. Yes, yes, it could have been "crap" (but not salt), some side reaction or something I had not foreseen, popping out of solution on me. But I knew in my heart and soul, that it was not.
When you have gotten it right, after months of failure, ironed out the kinks, figured out what’s wrong and how to correct things, and everything comes together, you go from famine to feast. This is one of the beauties of science. When things don’t work, it is usually because something is wrong, with the hypothesis or the method. Or both. So one goes back, tirelessly, to try, try, try again. Until. A white powder appears like magic from a stinky swirling liquid. Eureka!
[Excerpted from A QUIET RESIGNATION by Kevin Mc, out now on Amazon-Kindle]
Carfentanil was an omnipotent opiate derivative, with a deadly potency in fact, and I simply had to have it. No matter that it was painful failure after painful failure, with abysmally low yields and poor stability. I physically enjoyed the pain it caused me, and the sleepless nights were part and parcel of the task at hand. Sleepless either because I was up all night, from lab bench to armchair to bench to armchair, or, lying in bed with a million chemicals visible in my eyes, running around and combining with each other.
Nucleophilic attacks, electrophilic attacks, curly arrows, protonations, oxidations, reductions, hydrolyses, conversions, covalent bonds, ionic bonds, hydrogen bonds. Pink, black, blue, white, Charlie, you name it, I did it. I am forced to admit, I became a much stronger scientist and chemist during this period, mainly because my drive was such that I was “on the job” 24/7, essentially.
There is something both worrying yet absolutely exciting about having work to do that can be carried on in your head, even when lying in bed at night. The bedroom ceiling became my blackboard, and I was able to test all sorts of things in what had become my virtual laboratory: my own head. Not bad, huh? De facto, three labs running all at the same time. The ivory tower, the basement and my head. It was only a matter of time, old boy, until the genius shone through.
The problem was the bloody phenylether group itself, you see. When I tried to stick on other alkyl or alkanyl “R” groups, it worked much better. But the yield from the hydrolysis of the nitrile to the corresponding amide, when R was phenylethyl, was just miserable. The old ball and chain heard my screams of pain at the end of these syntheses, let me tell you. I had so many pilot hydrolyses reactions in my head, in the notebooks and ongoing downstairs that it was becoming impossible to keep track of them all. But, after the best part of six months, and learning all the while, one of my hypotheses struck pure gold. Clearly, I cannot give exact amounts and temperatures and methods; I don’t want the DEA on my back too, now do we? Well, you do. But I don’t. Cabiche?
To cut a long story short (I lost my mind), I had to break it down into parts, slow it down so I could see all the molecules jumping around in front of my eyes, modify things, then go back to full speed and let it happen. Ergo, and to wit, a brilliant new hydrolysis step came into focus. I first converted the nasty nitrile into a formidable formamide, which was done with care and precision. Good yield. Next came a two step hydrolysis, firstly of the formamide into an imidate intermediate. Ya have heard of intriguing imidates now, haven’t you Charles? Wonderful creatures, in the right hands. Then, after that, a slow alkalization, to allow decomposition of the imidate into an amide. De facto, ending up as previously in a minute amount, if even detectable, of 1-ß-phenylethyl-(4-phenylamino)-4-piperidine carboxamide.
The process of distilling off excess methanol from the first hydrolysis step was slow, and I was not in the mood to rush anything. Time was a wasting, and rushing foolishly can lead to significantly more loss of precious time. So I had gone upstairs to nap in front of the TV for a suspense movie the ball and chain was watching, and I went out for the count for almost two hours straight.
The ball and chain woke me when she was turning off the TV to go to bed, and I was so sure of the usual flask of empty liquid that I almost went up with her. But I had to stop the distillation reaction, as always, so I went back down. Charles, Charles, Charles. Can you even begin to imagine the lightning bolt that shot right through me, from the floor up, when across the room I thought I saw something clouding my mixture? I turned the power off on my rotating flask, and turned away, almost too excited to look. I went and did a bit of clean up, as the place was a mess with various reactions in different stages of completion, and mess was something very rare for me. A good cook always cleans up as they move along, always. But I had been tired and the weekend was coming, so I had let things slide somewhat.
After some time, I couldn’t resist further, and I went back to my reaction vessel. Charlie, I literally cried out so loud that the bottles on the shelves rattled against each other; there, at the bottom of the flask, fallen down, out of solution, was the most pristine white precipitate I had ever seen! I was beside myself with joy. So much powder I could see if from across the room. It must be ten-fold more than usual, I thought. Praise be to He on holy high, I had f'ing done it!
“Jesus Christ, I almost called 911 from upstairs, you scared the you-know-what out of me! I was certain you had been attacked or something had fallen on you, and look at you, standing there with a stupid smile on your face!”
“Darling, darling…humble, snivelling, whimpering, sycophantic little puppy dog apologies to you. You ain’t gonna believe it! You know what I’ve been working on, all these months, which feel like years, well, come over here, you are going to be astounded. Totally. It’s unbelievable! Look at this, no don’t touch it, it’s too precious, just look at it!”
“What am I looking at? A stinky round glass thing, with horrific smelling liquid in it, and some white crap or salt at the bottom. You’re a genius honey, now I am going back to bed. You can tell me all about it in the morning. Night.”
A kiss on the cheek, and she was gone. I am not sure whether there is more pleasure in having a partner who is in the same line of work as you, and so fully understands the reasons and details of a major breakthrough, or whether it is actually sweeter with one who does not. There’s something more juicy about the latter, more of an inside joke, or a private club. Exclusivity. They can celebrate with you, without having to know what all the fuss is about.
Trust me, the old ball and chain didn’t know. Probably a good thing, as I was now within reach of the gold, and she didn’t need to know that the gold was actually an illicit material, one that would be worth huge amounts of money to the wrong hands. Charlie, if only I could transport you back to that night, and the appearance of a white solid in my flask. Yes, yes, it could have been "crap" (but not salt), some side reaction or something I had not foreseen, popping out of solution on me. But I knew in my heart and soul, that it was not.
When you have gotten it right, after months of failure, ironed out the kinks, figured out what’s wrong and how to correct things, and everything comes together, you go from famine to feast. This is one of the beauties of science. When things don’t work, it is usually because something is wrong, with the hypothesis or the method. Or both. So one goes back, tirelessly, to try, try, try again. Until. A white powder appears like magic from a stinky swirling liquid. Eureka!
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