Comment by fuzzfactor

>using BuLi. Why does the solution turn pink?

I would say odds are because of an impurity. My first guess might be the solvent if there is more in action than reagents or reactants. Maybe could be confirmed or denied by some carefully figured filtration beforehand, which might not even be that difficult. I doubt I would try much further than that unless it was a bad problem.

Although for instance an alternate simple purification like distillation is pretty much routine for pure aniline to get some colorless material, and that's some pretty rough stuff to handle.

Now I once was a young chemist facing AI, I ended up highly focused on going forward in ways that would not be "taken over" by AI, and I knew I couldn't be slow or recession still might catch up with me, plus the 1990's were approaching fast ;)

By the mid 1990's I figured there's no way the stuff they have in this paper had not been well investigated.

I always knew it would take people that had way more megabytes than I could afford.

Sheesh, did I overestimate the progress people were making when I wasn't looking.