Question: what sort of process do you do when analyzing your results?

Matthew Camilleri answered on 11 Nov 2014:

So, all of my reactions are done in ethanol, as it is the only solvent that dissolves my reactants. The first thing is to remove the solvent by evaporating it, leaving only my reactants + possible products, which is called a crude mixture.

I then analyse my crude mixture using NMR, which is similar to taking a photo of your molecule to see where your hydrogens are. Once that is done, if a reaction has taken place I first do a happy dance before I column it, which separation of my compounds with respect to their solubility in different solvents. This would then give me a pure product which I can store in the lab.