Third person is a charm

So, this week we had success. The 1,2 benzenedithiol was finally a success. After two different graduate students tried it, I finally succeeded. So third person is the charm! It was really exciting to discover through NMR that we succeeded. I attribute our success to the fact that we distilled the TMEDA this time. So, today we started the reaction over again this time on a larger scale (instead of a one mL scale, we used a ten mL scale). Unfortunately, I am worried that it won't work because half way through the setup, our argon would no longer flow correctly. We would fiddle with the line and then it would work, but two minutes later it would stop flowing again. So, we had to resort to putting a balloon on the top and hoping that no air got into the system. So on Monday I will know more and hopefully it will have worked. This is a picture of the 1,2 benzendithiol and we are going to use this chemical on the left to make benz-cat, the picture on the right.