Solvent Dispensing

One of my duties at work is refilling solvent bottles in the Solvent Dispensing Facility. Bulk solvent is being transferred from 200 L drums into 4 L bottles. Sometimes impurities are discovered after dispensing and there needs to be a way to determine from which drum the bottle was refilled. Before I took over these duties, there was no way to track this.

I started keeping track of the drums and the refills in a spreadsheet (see the Coding/VBA page) but knew I needed to have a better system. I took the data from the spreadsheet and converted it into a SQLite database. Then I built an app around it to be able to easily enter the drum information and perform various data searches.

Fig.1 - Main application window
Fig.2 - Add Drum window
Fig.3 - Edit Drum window
Fig.4 - Add Refill window
Fig.5 - Browse Solvent Refill window
Fig.6 - Empty Solvent Drums window
Fig.7 - Search Refill Barcode window
Fig.8 - Search Number of Refills window

SDF Checker

The structural data file (SDF) belongs to a family of chemical-data file formats. It is based on the MOL-file format, both developed by Molecular Design Limited (MDL), now named Biovia (belongs to Dassault Systèmes).

The SDF contains information on the chemical structure and associated data of compounds in plain text. The original MOL-file only encoded a single molecule, whereas files in SDF format can encode single or multiple molecules that are then delimited by lines consisting of four dollar signs ($$$$). SDF files are formatted ASCII files that store information about the positions of the individual atoms (either in 2D or 3D space) that make up the molecule.

While working at ACD/Labs, sometimes we would receive SDFs from clients that would not import into the various software packages. There could be empty records, duplicate data, etc. I started writing a program to examine these files.

I was designing it to check for blank records and duplicate data names within a record, split large files into multiple smaller ones and export into individual MOL files. I had the first version sometime after I had left ACD/Labs. I gave it to a few people to test but have not been back to look at since 2011.

Fig.1 - Main SDF window
Fig.2 - Split file options window
Fig.3 - SDF to MOL files window

ChemHang

This is a desktop version of my "ChemHang" game that you can play at Coding/Javascript. I programmed this at the same time I was making the Javascript version.

Fig.1 - ChemHang game window