A free online guide to master Schlenk lines
Andryj Borys shares his knowledge on air-sensitive chemistry through an open-access handbook and website
Andryj Borys saw a Schlenk line for the first time when he started his PhD. Soon he realised that using it well required very specific skills that, like dark magic and traditional family recipes, seemed extremely secret – passed along by chemists for generations. The few books on the subject were often outdated and behind paywalls, so Borys decided to take action: based on his own lab notes and drawings, he created the ‘Schlenk Line Survival Guide’ and shared it online for free.
The project began a few years into Borys’ PhD at the University of Kent. ‘My supervisor, Ewan Clark, started teaching me lots of useful techniques, and I decided to keep detailed step-by-step records,’ he explains. The lab treasured them and used them to teach other students. ‘This really encouraged me to create something more thorough, and make it available to help others,’ adds Borys, who is now a postdoc at the University of Bern in Switzerland. Three years after his first encounter with a Schlenk line, he published the guide online. ‘Since April 2019, the website has received over 100,000 views!’