Evaporation
Once a reaction is complete and the target of the synthesis has been purified to the required level, the solvent in which the sample is dissolved needs to be removed. In many laboratories, this can be the most time consuming and laborious part of a synthetic procedure. Rotary evaporators are ubiquitous in chemistry laboratories, and most chemists have spent many hours carefully tending evaporations to remove solvents, watchful for bumping that can result in lost samples and the need to repeat syntheses.