Sweet action. I love this paper and it has found a home. We've wanted PhI(OTf)2 for years. It can't be done. Or at least it hasn't yet. …https://chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/chem.202003819

Check out this team effort. Back in the day, like 2015 we published there was some issues with the typical synthesis and it actually makes PhI(OAc)(OTf). We published this in Inorganic Chemistry, so the organikers didn't read it.

Enter Mohammad. He just finished his PhD. The question you should be asking yourself is why you haven't hired Mohammad yet. He will run your lab like a clock and get his shit done perfect. I digress. We want PhI(OTf)2 and everything he tries turns to a bag of garbage.

Cause nothing reported works. The project becomes a poisoned chalice in the lab. If Jason says work on it, run far, run fast. Anyhow, I get Lachlan to try again, try some different stuff, try EVERYTHING. same shit, different pile.

A couple years go by. Tania...thats right...just Tania...get her to start trying cause the lab had forgotten the project is a dead end and I can convince someone else to chase my white whale. She was just starting her MSc in Feb 2020. Gets in the lab for a month. COVID-BOMB!!!!!

Tania, without missing a step, pivots to computational chemistry and gets the key result that PhI(OAc)2 + TMS-OTf is downhill, but PhI(OTf)(OAc) + TMS-OTf is uphill. Thats the way everyone has done it for years. Except reports from PhI=O which Mohammad and Lachlan tried.

Groovy. Lets write a paper. Except our debunking of PhI=O + 2 TMS-OTf --> PhI(OTf)2, obviously doesn't make the stuff but have 100 NMRs of crap. Enter Sevan...has limited lab access during COVID as a research only person. Organic chemist extraordinaire, has never heard of project

You can't say something doesn't work but we have no idea what it makes....Postdoc Sevan unravels all that and we've now got a paper. Sevan also questioned like every sentence I wrote and asked if it was as good as it possibly could be. This was the cleanest paper I've submitted.

This gets refereed...almost gets into Angew....these things happen...make the minor revisions, send to Chem Eur J. I guess one of original referees must be on vacation cause we get new referee who says we are definelty wrong. Totally wrong and here are experiments to prove it.

Enter Tiffany and Lachlan again. Tiffany has lab access due to being in last year of PhD, Lachlan has a few hours a day. The journal gives us 10 days. I ask Tiffany if she wants to be on a paper. She says "sure, what do I do". I say "stuff, talk tomorrow"

She is aware of the project, but has never worked on it....anyhow her and Lachlan heroically get all the experiments done in like 4 days to get the paper over the line. Fuckin right fast and right the first time. And the second time to be sure cause Sevan made them.

The final hero in this story is referee 2, who upon seeing the results of the experiments they suggested admitted it does not look like PhI(OTf)2 exists. And finally, also kudos to me for refusing to fold a losing hand over years. I'm sure that will never bite me in the ass.

Anyhow, picking your favorite paper is like picking your favorite kid. Which I would for sure do if I had more than one kid, and this totally is my favorite paper. Apologies to those who have not already muted me over the years.

I was already drinking when I got the acceptance notification tonight cause I managed to run the 4 km to the liquor store without stopping so got my reward. I hope this hasn't annoyed and/or offended anyone, but thats Future Jason's problem.