NEWSLETTER OF THE LEHIGH VALLEY SECTION FEBRUARY, 2017 OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY VOL. 100, NO. 2 THE OCTAGON

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1 VOL. 100, NO. 2 THE OCTAGON 872 nd LVACS Meeting: Muhlenberg College In This Issue: Characterization of Aqueous Secondary Organic Aerosol from Dicarbonyls MEETING DETAILS: Date: Thursday March 30, 2017 Location: Muhlenberg College 2400 Chew St., Allentown, PA Social: 5:30 PM Seegers Union Room 111 Dinner: 6:00 PM Seegers Union Room 111 Meeting and Program: 7:00 PM Trumbower Hall Room 130 March Meeting 1-2 April Meeting 3 Poster Session 4 Before LVACS 5-6 MARM Chemagination 7-9 MARM Awards 10 CMA 10 Organic Scholarship 11 STLE Scholarship 12 MARM Annual Report WISE Officers 16 Menu: Social Hour -Tri-Colored Tortilla Chips with Pico de Gallo & Guacamole Chicken Diablo Empanadas Dinner - Fix Your Own Fajita: Grilled Skirt Steak with Peppers & Onions, Culinary Roasted Vegetables, Black Beans, Shredded Cheese, Lettuce, Tomato, Sour Cream, Grilled Onions & Peppers, Spanish Rice, Flour Tortillas Cost: $20, $10 for students and retirees RSVP: to LuAnn Feist by Friday, March 24, , feist@muhlenberg.edu Directions: Parking: use staff parking behind Trumbower Hall, see aboutus/tour/map.html VOL. 100, NO. 2, PAGE 1

2 Speaker: Dr. Christen Strollo, College of St. Benedict & St. John s University Christen graduated from Muhlenberg College in 2006 before attending the University of California, Riverside where she received a Ph.D. in chemistry in 2013 under the direction of Paul Ziemann. Christen spent a year as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Lyon College in Arkansas before starting a tenure track position at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John s University in central Minnesota. She teaches a variety of intro and upper division courses that combine her interests in analytical, physical and environmental chemistry in addition to courses in the environmental studies department and integrative science department. Her research focuses on the atmospheric reactions of small molecules and their ability to form particles. When she s not training future scientists, Christen enjoys spending time outdoors Title: Characterization of Aqueous Secondary Organic Aerosol from Dicarbonyl Abstract: Glyoxal and methylglyoxal are two common dicarbonyls found in the earth s atmosphere, originating from the oxidation of both biogenic and anthropogenic sources such as isoprene and toluene. They are oxidized in the atmosphere by hydroxyl radicals and can also partition into the aqueous phase, where they can undergo further oxidation or accretion reactions. These small molecule reactions are thought to play a role in the formation of secondary organic aerosol (SOA), which contribute to the overall amount of particulate matter in earth s atmosphere. Aerosols affect air quality, cloud formation, and global temperature, as they reflect or absorb light, depending on their composition. There is a discrepancy in the predicted and measured concentration of SOA due to an uncertainty in its formation mechanism. Data will be presented from kinetic studies of the aqueous oxidation of glyoxal and methylglyoxal, as well as the identification of products formed during such reactions. Preliminary data shows evidence of a zero-order reaction (k = 3 x 10-7 M s -1 ) for glyoxal, and a first order reaction (k = 2 x 10-4 s -1 ) for methylglyoxal. The ability of organic aerosol to serve as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) is probed by measuring the deliquescence relative humidity (DRH) of inorganic salts, organics, and mixtures of compounds that could be present in aerosols. We implement a method of determining deliquescence and efflorescence using a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) equipped with a humidity chamber. Preliminary studies show that mixtures of organics and inorganics produce a decreased and less defined DRH compared to the pure salts., PAGE 2

3 April Meeting - Undergraduate Student Poster Session and Student Awards Night! DeSales University Thursday, April 20th, 2017 Poster Session and Social: 5:00-6:00PM -DeSales University Center, Foyer Dinner: 6:00-7:00pm -DeSales University Center, Commonwealth Room Meeting: 7:00-7:30 PM -Hurd Science Center, Auditorium Awards and Program: 7:30-8:30 Priscilla Payne Hurd Auditorium Cost: $30 LVACS members and faculty, $15 students/retirees and unemployed members RSVP: Sara Hayik - April 3, 2017 for abstract submission; April 14, 2017 for RSVP without abstract submission. Any questions please naturalsciences@desales.edu or call x1365 Directions: Parking: Program - Two presentations will be made by undergraduate research students as chosen from the posters submitted for talk consideration. Poster submission guidelines on the following page - more meeting details to come Call for Committee Chairs We are seeking to fill the chair positions for: Public Relations Outreach Senior Chemists If you are interested and need more information please contact Celia Williams at lvacscma.gmail.com, PAGE 3

4 LVACS Undergraduate Research Poster Session Thursday April 20, 2017, 5:00-6:00 PM DeSales University - Preceding the April meeting of the Lehigh Valley Section of the ACS Who may participate? Undergraduates attending a college or university within the Lehigh Valley section of the ACS. Research may have been done at the student's home institution with a chemistry or chemical engineering faculty member or during a summer research experience elsewhere. To participate: Students wishing to present their work must themselves submit an abstract by April 2, 2017 through the registration form at 8ymwPr4BTilxnYC73. (Please be sure to only submit abstracts once.) In this form, the poster can be submitted for consideration for presentation as the talk during the meeting. Abstract format - The following information will be required when filling out the form a thttps://goo.gl/forms/8ymwpr4btilxnyc73 Title (sentence case) Authors names, authors institutions and addresses included in that order. Abstract of research, 150 words maximum Other requirements and information The poster session is held before the dinner meeting and our annual student awards night. Poster presenters will be provided pins and poster board. Easels will be provided for displaying the posters. I f y o u h a v e a n y q u e s t i o n s p l e a s e c o n t a c t S a r a H a y i k a t sara.hayik@desales.edu, Ext 1365., PAGE 4

5 Chemistry Collaborations Before the LV-ACS Submitted by Ned Hindel Before there was a Lehigh Valley ACS Section (1893/4) there were already chemists at work in the Lehigh Valley. One common project ( ) that brought many of them into collaboration was the publishing of the American Chemist. As explained below by the late James J. Bohning, this professional journal born eight years before the Journal of the American Chemical Society, was co-edited at Lehigh University by department chairman, William Henry Chandler and his brother, Charles Chandler at Columbia University. William Chandler sought the assistance of more than 20 local chemists to help create the content for the journal. Alas, almost none of these individuals is identified by the name of their employer and many are cited only as initials. Nevertheless, by scanning the eight volumes one does find many pre-acs chemists of the Lehigh Valley whose affiliations can be deduced. Frederick Prime, Jr., Thomas M. Drown, and William S. Sweeny are all indicated as being from Easton and the first two are well-known Lafayette College professors. Prime published on the identification of ores and minerals and Drown on analytical methods for sulfur in pig iron. Waldron Shapleigh was a Lehigh University faculty member and J. P. Kimball, Ph.D. (also from Bethlehem) specialized in assaying the comparative quality of iron ore. C. M. Roeper (also from Bethlehem) may have been the local apothecary. E. F. Loiseau of Mauch Chunk was a coal chemist who published a method for binding fine coal dust with clay to make stovesized chunks. Chandler and his brother folded The American Chemist, 140 years ago, in 1877 but many of the journal s chemistry writers and contributors would assemble again in professional fellowship with the formation of the Lehigh Valley ACS Local Section. The story of the rise and fall of this journal was published by the James J. Bohning ( ) in the May 2009 issue of The Octagon.!, PAGE 5

6 The American Chemist: A Pre-Octagon Chemistry Publication Written by James J. Bohning When the British publishers of the American reprint of Chemical News decided to discontinue that publication in the United States in 1870, the Chandler brothers at Columbia University decided to offer to the subscribers of that journal and to all who are directly interested in the progress of chemistry, a new journal: The Chandlers, who had purchased the subscription list and stock of the American reprint of Chemical News, intended to present every thing of value in the English edition to the end of the current year [1870], but declared that as of the January issue of 1871, the American Chemist would be an entirely independent journal. Charles F. Chandler ( ) earned a Ph.D. at Gottingen and had been on the faculty at Columbia since His younger brother William ( ) had attended classes at Union College and was a student and chemistry assistant at Columbia. He subsequently came to Lehigh University in the fall of 1871 as Lehigh s second chemistry professor, replacing Charles Mayer Wetherill who had died unexpectedly that spring. (For more on the Chandlers see Robert D. Billinger, The Chandler Influence in American Chemistry, Journal of Chemical Education 1939, 16, ) For the next six years Lehigh would be prominently mentioned on the masthead as the institution of the journal s coeditor. The intent of the Chandlers was three-fold. First, they intended to publish original research papers when they were available and encouraged submissions from chemists. Secondly, they intended, under the title Notes from the Foreign and American Journals, to review the important American, British, French and German journals and present abstracts of papers which involve chemical principles in their discussion. In a sense the American Chemist was a forerunner of Chemical Abstracts by more than 30 years. Finally, the Chandlers felt strongly enough to add to the mission of the journal the exposure of humbug and fraud when they appear under the guise of science, and thus to aid in dispelling the too common prejudice against science which exists in the minds of many practical men who have been imposed upon by designing or ignorant pseudo-scientists. One of the more intriguing issues was that of January, 1873, which included actual dyed fabric samples pasted in to each copy to illustrate a paper on dye-stuffs., PAGE 6

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8 2017 MARM Chemagination Description and Rules CONTEST OVERVIEW For this event, high school students are asked to imagine that they are living 25 years in the future and have been invited to write an article for ChemMatters, a magazine for high school students that focuses on the role of chemistry in everyday life. The subject of the article is: Describe a recent breakthrough or innovation in chemistry (and/or its applications) that has improved the quality of people s lives today. To view a sample ChemMatters magazine visit acs.org, and look under Education: highschool/chemmatters.html. In addition to the article, students are asked to design a cover for the magazine. The article must be written as if the student is living in the year 2042, looking back at innovations that have occurred since The innovation must fall into one of the following categories: * Alternative Energy * Medicine/Health * Environment * New Materials A few examples of areas where development is expected are: nanotechnology, energy efficiency, pollution prevention, green chemistry, sustainability, intelligent devices for sensing, proteomics, climate models, biopharmaceutical therapies, medical devices and/or implants and new energy sources. Evaluation of the entry is based upon: (1) the written article which is submitted in advance, (2) the presentation of the innovation on a self-standing display and (3) knowledge of and soundness of the science as demonstrated in interviews with judges (much like science fair judging). RULES ARTICLES must: be written by a team of two or three students; each student may be on only one team. be about 1000 words (figure captions are not included in the limit). present the chemistry/scientific concepts/ideas/principles behind the innovation. describe the innovation and indicate how it has improved people s lives. present a history of the changes that had to occur over the prior 25 years to develop this innovation. include drawings, diagrams, illustrations and descriptions of the chemistry and any technology involved in all key aspects of the innovation. cite a minimum of three technical references. include a cover design for the magazine. The cover design can be an original c o m p u t e r graphic or a free-hand drawing. DISPLAYS must: be 24 deep, 40 wide and 48 tall or less, and be able to sit on a table, much like at a science fair display. include the cover of the magazine. be a visual representation of the article s content with a minimum of text. include a list of references cited. Continued on the next page, PAGE 8

9 MARM Chemagination continued ATTENDANCE: At least one member of the team must attend the contest to present the display and interview with the judges to be eligible for prizes. SCORING: Winners are selected by the judges based on the quality of the article and display, and the quality and understanding of the science of the innovation. Criteria for scoring include scientific thought, creativity, clarity, thoroughness and teamwork. ELIGIBILITY/REQUIREMENTS: Each local section can submit up to four entries (1 per category). All students must be currently enrolled in an accredited high school or home school and be taking or have recently completed a grades 9-12 science class. Students and their parents are responsible for transportation to and from the meeting site. All entries become the property of the ACS and will not be acknowledged or returned. The ACS, its agents and contractors, are not responsible for lost, late, misdirected, or postage-due entries. Acceptance of the prize constitutes consent to use the winners names, likeness and entries for editorial, advertising, and publicity purposes. Prizes are not transferable. Taxes, if any, are the sole responsibility of the winner. Participants will be asked to provide a Photo Release Form signed by a parent or guardian prior to attending the contest. KEY DEADLINES February 6 March 15 May 1 May 15 May 22 Local sections notify 2017 MARM Chemagination contest co-chairs of their preliminary intent to participate in 2017 MARM Chemagination. Local sections confirm their intent to participate in 2017 MARM Chemagination Local Sections submit their estimate of the number of teams they will be sending to the 2017 MARM Chemagination. Local sections confirm number of participating teams and submit article titles and contact information on each student. (Submission process will be announced at a later date.) Teams submit their articles for pre-judging. June 4 The 2017 MARM Chemagination competition takes place at Hershey L o d g e, Hershey, PA., PAGE 9

10 COMMITTEE ON MINORITY AFFAIRS Do you iden6fy yourself as a chemist belonging to an underrepresented group? Are you interested in being involved in the Lehigh Valley Sec6on of the ACS? Would you enjoy programming that will bejer reflect your interests, and ajend events that will benefit you professionally? If you replied YES to any of the above ques6ons, please contact: Celia Williams, Ph.D., MBA lvacscma@gmail.com Chair of the Commi:ee on Minority Affairs Lehigh Valley SecAon of the ACS, PAGE 10

11 LV-ACS Scholarship for Organic Chemistry The Lehigh Valley Section of the American Chemical Society will award its annual Scholarship for Organic Chemistry this May. To be eligible, students should be below the junior level, currently enrolled in organic chemistry at an institution in the section, and a chemistry, biochemistry, or chemical engineering major. The competition entails taking the ACS Organic Chemistry Examination (45%), a letter of recommendation from the student s organic chemistry professor (10%), and an essay on a topic in organic chemistry (45%). The value of the scholarship is $1000. Additionally, the top essay will receive $100. Details about the exam, letter, and essay follow below. Students should indicate their interest in the scholarship in advance of 28 April 2017 to Dr John Freeman, Jfreeman@esu.edu. ACS Organic Chemistry Examination: The exam will be administered on Saturday, 29 April 2017, at Moravian College, Bethlehem, PA from 9:00-11:00 AM. Students should report to the entry foyer of the Collier Hall of Science, which is on the Main Street Campus. For driving directions and campus map see Juice and bagels will be available at 8:45 AM. Letter of Recommendation: Professors writing a letter of recommendation on behalf of a student who is applying for the Lehigh Valley ACS Scholarship should speak to the student s skills in lecture and laboratory in Organic Chemistry I and Organic Chemistry II. Please provide the course grade for Organic Chemistry I and comment on performance on written exams, proficiency in organic lab, and participation in recitations, problem sessions or course-related group work. If possible, address the student s quantitative skills by commenting on her or his performance in quantitative analysis or its local equivalent. The letter of recommendation must be submitted in a sealed plain envelope and signed by the professor over the seal. The student will be required to bring the sealed letter to the ACS Organic Chemistry Exam at Moravian College on 29 April 2017 Essays: The student should choose a molecule, a group of molecules, or a process in organic chemistry to write about. The essay should be written at a level to interest and educate a general chemist who has completed sophomore-level organic chemistry. Synthesis, mechanism and structural elucidation should be covered for the chosen molecule (or representative examples of a chosen group). If a process is chosen, the physical and chemical basis for its success should be explained. Judicious use of structures is expected. The essay should address the impact of the molecule or process on society and the student s personal interest in it. The essay should run from 1600 to no more than 1800 words in Times New Roman 12 point font with one-inch margins on all sides. This does not include figures. Each page should have a header with the student s last name, brief essay title and page number. An additional page with references must be included. References should follow the style of The Journal of the American Chemical Society (an article from a recent issue can serve as a model). The winning essay after editing may be published on the section website with a link in the Octagon. The essay will be rated on: 30% - Appropriate depth of coverage of the molecule(s) or process. 30% - Appropriate depth of coverage on the impact on society and student s interest. 20% - Ease of reading, including grammar, spelling, and logical flow of the material. 10% - Appropriate use of structures and figures. 10% - Appropriate use of references. 5% - Penalty for failure to adhere to the formatting rules provided. The student should bring the essay to the ACS Organic Chemistry Exam at Moravian College on 29 April 2017, PAGE 11

12 The 2017 Mid Atlantic Regional Meeting will be taking place June 4-6, 2017, Jointly hosted by the Susquehanna Valley and Lehigh Valley Local Sections, MARM is making a big return to Hershey, PA, June 4-6 in for more information see David Rovnyak, Program Chair, MARM 2017 Professor of Chemistry Bucknell University Lewisburg, Pennsylvania drovnyak@bucknell.edu, PAGE 12

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15 Our local section will be sponsoring a table at the Women in Science & Engineering Field Trip Day on March 21, :00 2:00 pm at the DaVinci Science Center. We will have an opportunity to interact with hundreds of girls, hopefully motivate them to STEM careers through our 5 minutes hands on fun activity on the theme of Green Chemistry. Approximately 400 girls in grades 5-8 as well as parents and educators will be attending. Please contact Jeanne Berk for further information at jrberk@cedarcrest.edu., PAGE 15

16 2017 LVACS OFFICERS Chair: Celia Williams Avantor Performance Materials, Inc J.T. Baker Way Phillipsburg, NJ Treasurer: Lindsey Welch Dept. of Chemical and Physical Sciences Cedar Crest College Allentown, PA ext 3615 Secretary: Seiji Inaoka alumni.org Immediate Past Chair: Kelley Caflin Picatinny Arsenal Chair Elect: John Freeman East Stroudsburg University East Stroudsburg, PA Councilor: Jeanne Berk Dept. of Chemical and Physical Sciences Cedar Crest College Allentown, PA ext 3507 Councilor: Lorena Tribe 218 Luerssen Bldg Penn State Berks Tupelhocken Rd PO Box 7009 Reading PA Octagon Editor & Webmaster: T. Michelle Jones-Wilson East Stroudsburg University East Stroudsburg, PA PAGE 16