The Alembic

VOLUME 38, NUMBER 3 NOVEMBER 2011

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2011 ACS - CWS

Mini-Directory

Chair

Robin Tanke

Department of Chemistry

Univ. Wisc. - Stevens Point

Stevens Point, WI 54481

Phone: (715) 346-4325

E-mail: rtanke@uwsp.edu

Chair-Elect Dale Pillsbury

796N Pripps Road

Park Falls, WI 54552

Phone: (715) 583-4426

E-mail: hollyanddale@aol.com

Immediate Past Chair

Stephen Leiterman

307 5th Street

Mosinee, WI 54455

Phone: (715) 693-3998

E-mail: esleiterman@yahoo.com

Secretary - Treasurer Tipton Randall

Phone: (715) 720-1969

E-mail: trandall@clearwire.net

Councilor C. Marvin Lang

Phone (715) 346-3609

Email: cmlang@uwsp.edu

Alternate Councilor James Brummer

Phone: (715) 346-2888

E-mail: jbrummer@uwsp.edu

Newsletter Editor Dale Pillsbury

796N Pripps Road

Park Falls, WI 54552

Phone: (715) 583-4426

E-mail: hollyanddale@aol.com

November 2011 CWS ACS Meeting

“ Renewable Raw Materials & the Wisconsin

Institute for Sustainable Technology ”

Speaker: Dr. Paul Fowler, Executive Director,

Wisconsin Institute for Sustainable Technology

University of Wisconsin — Stevens Point, WI

Where: Aldo Leopold Science Building, Rm 127

UW-Wood County, Marshfield, WI 54449

When: Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 7:30 PM

Pre-meeting social (5:00 pm) and dinner (6:00 pm) will be held at

West 14th restaurant, 108 W 9th St., Marshfield, WI. Contact Cristina

Altobelli for reservations at 715-346-2888

See page 2 for directions to West 14th and the UW-Wood County campus.

See page 3 for Dr. Fowler’s biography & abstract.

The Chair’s Corner – A Very Good Month

Continued on page 2

First of all, I want to thank Dr. Amanda Hakemian, Assistant Professor, UW

Wood County) for agreeing to organize the Chemistry Olympiad for the Cen-

tral Wisconsin Section.

Second, I want to thank Jason D’Acchioli and Steve Leiterman for a wonderful

meeting at the Pinewood Supper Club. Jason got us thinking about poetry, art, and

chiral molecules. Steve provided the environment to make for an enjoyable dinner

and talk. We also thank Marv Lang for the use of his projector.

Third, I’m looking for more volunteers. We need to have elections for officers in a

few weeks. We will have elections for Chair-Elect, Secretary-Treasurer, Coun-

cilor and Alternate Councilor. If you would like to run for any of these positions

please let me know by the November 16th meeting. I am especially interested to

know if someone would be willing to serve as chair-elect. I am happy to answer

any questions about the position. Currently, Tip Randall is willing to run for the

office of Secretary-Treasurer and Marv Lang for the office of Councilor.

NCW at the Boys and Girls Club was a great way to boost support for science

education and research. See the photos included in this issue of the Alembic. All

in all it was a very successful event!

Page 2

Volume 38, number 3 The Alembic November 2011

1. From the junction of WI 13 and Business 13 (aka South Central Ave) in Marshfield, go south until you come to 9th St.

Turn right onto 9th St. The West 14th restaurant is at 108 W 9th on your left, only a short way west from Business 13.

2. From West 14th go back to Business 13 (S. Central Ave) and turn left going north on S. Central Ave until you

come to 5th Street. Turn left (west) on 5th street. The street bends to the left after 6 blocks (0.5 miles).

3. Continue on West 5th Street for 11 more blocks (0.9) miles until you come to 2000 West 5th Street.

4. The campus is on your left; turn left at main entrance by the large U of W - Wood County sign.

5. On your left, you will see a parking lot between the A. G. Felker Student Center and the Aldo Leopold

Science Building.

Directions to West 14th & the Aldo Leopold Science Building

Our next meeting will be in Marshfield on Wednesday November 16, 2011. Paul Fowler, director of the Wisconsin In-

stitute for Sustainable Technology (WIST), will tell us about the institutes mission and offerings. WIST recently re-

leased its annual report which is available on-line at http://issuu.com/wistsolutions/docs/annualreportfec10-3-11?

mode=window&backgroundColor=%23222222. I hope to see you in Marshfield and that you enjoy the poem by our

student, Chris Shaw, on page 5. Robin

I was thrilled when Amanda Hakemian said she would be interested in becoming our section’s coordinator for the

Chemistry Olympiad at our last meeting. Since the outgoing coordinator, Paul Hladky, newly appointed chair of the Ste-

vens Point Chemistry department, was also at the meeting, he could spell out he coordinator’s duties in more detail. The

presence of both of these people must have been fated. What a boon for our section’s students!

This month we will hear from Dr. Paul Fowler, Executive Director of WIST (Wisconsin Institute for Sustainable Tech-

nology), and an abstract of his talk and his biography appear on page 3. There is a photo spread of the Portage Country

Boys and Girls Club celebration of National Chemistry Week starting directly below and continued on page 4. This is

followed by a poem from Stevens Point senior, Chrisopher Shaw. Then I give some analytical chemistry history featur-

ing Arnold Beckman and finally you are asked to make your choice of a method to receive your future issues of the

Alembic.

The Editor ’s Desk

Dale

National Chemistry Week — A Fun Learning Experience for All

It started with UW Chemistry Professor Robin Tanke applying for and receiving an ACS sponsored Bridging the Gap

Nano-Grant for Celebrating the International Year of Chemistry. Robin was assisted by Dr. Michael Zach in setting up

one of the demonstrations for a presentation at the Boys and Girls Club of Portage County on October 19. Nine members

of the Stevens Point ACS student affiliate chapter acted as demonstrators at the event and 20 boys and girls, as well as 4-

5 teachers and parents attended. The participants saw the effect of very cold temperatures on normally elastic materials.

They learned about the difference between white light and specific light emitting diodes (LEDs) while wearing their dif-

fraction glasses. In an activity, they found that some LED colors cause glow-in-the-dark paper to glow while other LED

colors did not. They were also shown a sample of small particles of different sizes and their ability to luminesce. Later, in

an activity they extracted chlorophyll from spinach and checked

for luminescence. In a demonstration, gold nanoparticles were

prepared and there was a discussion about using them to color

the glass in stained glass windows. In another activity, partici-

pants placed clear nail polish on black Tyvek to observe interfer-

ence colors. Finally, there was the always-popular slime making

activity and some participants added extracted chlorophyll to

their slime to make it glow-in-the-dark. From the photos below it

is clear a good time was had by all!

NCW photos continued on page 4

Here Drew demonstrates the effect on elasticity of a racquet ball after it has been chilled with liquid nitro-gen. Red circles show where part of the now very ine-lastic ball have scattered around the floor after it was dropped. You can just hear the young man in the left of the picture exclaiming “Wow” !

“ R enewable Raw Materials

and

the Wisconsin Institute for Sustainable Technology ”

Speaker: Dr. Paul Fowler, Executive Director,

Wisconsin Institute for Sustainable Technology,

University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point

Where: Aldo Leopold Science Building, Room 127

When: 7:30 PM Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

Pre-meeting social hour ( 5:00 pm ) , dinner ( 6:00 pm ) at West 14th, 108 West 9th St. Marshfield, WI. Contact Cristina

Altobelli by noon on November 16, 2011 at 715-346-2888 or e-mail caltobel@uwsp.edu for reservations.

ABSTRACT: The Wisconsin Institute for Sustainable Technology (WIST) at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens

Point (UWSP) was launched in September 2010. The institute is intended to foster collaborations across the campus and

with the business community in science to improve the sustainability of products and processes. An area of particular

focus is in adding value to the abundant natural resources within the state. Effort is directed to upgrading low value for-

estry, paper and agricultural resources responding to an increased demand by brand-owners, retailers and government

departments for low environmental impact, cleaner, more sustainable products and processes. Areas of investigation in-

clude renewable fuels, bio-based plastics, fine chemicals and polymers. In parallel, the institute is increasing its capacity

to perform life cycle assessment to assist in the validation of reduced environmental impact claims.

Close collaborations with UWSP’s academic departments are creating opportunities to promote unique developmental

and analytical services to local and regional businesses. Of particular note is the relationship with the Department of Pa-

per Science and Engineering which has led to contracts with paper companies locally and nationally to help innovate

new products and processes. We expect to extend this model of collaboration to other schools and departments at UWSP.

This presentation will provide an overview of WIST, its focus and direction and outline a number of prospective oppor-

tunities that agriculture and forest-sourced renewable resources could fulfill.

BIOGRAPHY: Dr Paul Fowler received a BSc in Chemistry from the University of East

Anglia, UK in 1990. He undertook postgraduate studies at UEA in carbohydrate chemistry

synthesizing glucosidase inhibitors as potential anti-HIV agents. He was a Royal Society

supported postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Professor Dr Andrea Vasella at the ETH-

Zurich, Switzerland from 1994-1995 preparing buckminsterfullerene-monosaccharide con-

jugates. In 1996 he moved to the laboratory of Professor Robin Ferrier at the Victoria Uni-

versity of Wellington, New Zealand to prepare sulfated oligosaccharides. From 1998-2010,

Dr Fowler was first a research manager and then director of the BioComposites Centre at

Bangor University in Wales, UK. In the summer of 2010, he relocated to Stevens Point, WI

as inaugural director of WIST. Professional interests revolve around the use of plant-based

materials to substitute or replace materials derived from petroleum.

Page 3

Volume 38, number 3 The Alembic November 2011

National Chemistry Week photos continued

Children and staff watch as Emily and Dustin make gold nanoparticles.

Page 4

Boys and girls get acquainted with how diffraction glasses help them to see the many colors of white light

Courtney and Ashley extract chlorophyll from spinach

Quanwei helps with the “Which LED makes the glow-in-the dark paper glow” activity

Ashley helps a boy see the luminescence from chlorophyll & tonic water when it is irradiated with UV light

Volume 38, number 3 The Alembic November 2011

Alyce helps participants see the interference patterns created by the nail polish on the black Tyvek™

A participant thinly coats black Tyvek™ with nail pol-ish on a water surface.

Albert helps boys and girls make slime

The ever- popular slime is always a hit!

National Chemistry Week — Sometimes All it Takes is One

Christopher Shaw, a senior chemistry student at UWSP, who will graduating in December, celebrated National Chemis-

try Week in his own special way—with his poem entitled ―Polymer‖

At first glance, you may not know where to start;

One after another, is this all the same part?

Covalent bonds are only the start:

Wiggling and turning, it's hard to get them apart.

It's the onset of entanglement-it's the most important part,

Intermolecular forces, they were there from the start.

But you must see, they all play a part;

Adding plasticizers and chlathrates: this is just the start.

They come short and long and everything in between.

Just look all around you; they're here to be seen.

Elastomers or rubber, fiber and plastic:

Who knew learning polymers could be so fantastic?

Page 5

Volume 38, number 3 The Alembic November 2011

Imagine this scenario: The year is 1935, Indiana Jones has just returned from his adventure at the Temple

of Doom, bringing a small sample of an unknown white powder with him which possesses miraculous

healing powers. You are a young, female chemist and Indy has hired you to analyze this powder. Before

you become too enamored with this striking man, however, his vertically-challenged sidekick, Shortround,

acerbically reminds you: ―his name’s Dr. Jones, doll‖. Resigned to your romantically dull fate, you deter-

minedly go to your lab to carry out an extensive series of degradation and synthesis reactions to deduce

the structure(s) of the compound(s) present in the unknown material. However, with the available tech-

niques this may take several years of meticulous work and there is so little of the powder available for

analysis. You don’t have the advantage of chromatography, which is just in its rather dormant infancy,

and analytical instruments are either laboratory curiosities (primarily in physics laboratories), or haven’t

been invented yet. And we all know Indy’s remarkable proclivity to get into life-threatening situations.

You will do your very best, but will it be enough to save Indy from his next brush with death?

The pH Meter In September of the same year (1935) that our hypothetical chemist began her analysis of Indiana Jones’

miraculous powder, Arnold Beckman started selling his pH meter. Beckman, a young professor at Cal Tech, had been

contacted by a friend to devise a way to practically measure the acidity of lesser grade citrus fruit which was to be chemi-

cally processed into pectin and citric acid. The sulfur dioxide used as a preservative for the fruit bleached litmus paper,

the standard pH monitoring tool of the time. While the $195 price tag for Beckman's pH meter was forecast to quickly

saturate the available market for such a device, he was able grow a thriving business, albeit he had to resign from Cal

Tech where applied science was considered beneath the dignity of a faculty member.

The heart of Beckman's pH meter was the glass electrode. It was known as early as 1906 that a difference in potential

(EMF) exists across opposite sides of a glass membrane which is immersed in a conducting liquid. By 1922 it was shown

that the alkali-silicate glass electrode is reversible with respect to hydrogen ion concentration, making it a reliable meas-

urement for pH within pHs of -1 to about +12. Alkali ions and excessively acidic media cause a sloping of the volts ver-

sus pH curve outside of this range. Simple galvanometers could measure the voltage related to pH, but this was a delicate

operation since measured currents were very small. As surprising as it may seem, Beckman's "marriage" of a vacuum

tube amplifier circuit to a galvanometer (i.e., making use of a vacuum tube voltmeter to measure the voltage) and packag-

ing the whole thing in a tidy walnut box was a major step toward bringing instrumentation to chemical analysis.

The Beckman DU Spectrometer Arnold Beckman's company, National Technical Laboratories, (NTL, later to become

Beckman Instrument Co.) started developing spectrophotometers in 1940. NTL rapidly progressed from their A series to

the famous Beckman DU, the first commercial spectrophotometer capable of operating in the UV as well as the visible

range*. Beckman's experience with incorporating electronic amplification in his pH meter was employed successfully in

the DU. This instrument sold for $723 in 1941 and was finally withdrawn from the market in 1976 – an amazing market

lifetime of 35 years! About the time the DU hit the marketplace, it was becoming apparent vitamin A was a critical hu-

man nutrient which was largely supplied by cod liver oil from Scandinavian fisheries. However, WWII cut off supplies of

cod liver oil to the US and shark liver oil appeared a possible alternative, and an unrestricted, source. However, conven-

tional analysis for vitamin A content required analyzing the bone structure of the tails of rats fed oil for 21 days, while the

Beckman DU with its UV capability was able to give a much more precise measurement of vitamin A content in just a

few minutes. Instrumental analysis was proving its worth.

The Beckman IR Infrared spectroscopy has had arguably the largest/broadest impact on chemical analysis. Abney and

Festing established infrared absorptions could be correlated with functional groupings in 1881 and Coblentz carefully

__________________________________________________

* G. Hansen created the first recording double beam spectrophotometer in 1912, based on earlier drawings by P. P. Koch (Optical Spectroscopy in Chemistry and Life Sciences. W. Schmidt Copyright c 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim ISBN 3-527-29911-4). The General Electric, Cenco and Coleman companies each sold spectrophotometers in the 1930s. However, these instruments were restricted to the visible range and were difficult to use and/or expensive, e.g. the GE Hardy Spectrophotometer cost $6,400 in 1943.

Too Bad Indy – You Were Born Too Early

( Or Perhaps Arnold Beckman was Born Too Late )

Beckman continued on page 7

Page 6

Volume 38, number 3 The Alembic November 2011

Page 7

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The Chemistry Department

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produced IR spectra point by point for a large number of inorganic as well as organic compounds in 1903. Prior to the

1940s, a small number of homemade IR spectrometers were employed by a few companies as analytical tools and IR

was researched by academics, who also built their own equipment. However, at the start of WWII, the Allies were in dire

need of a substitute for natural rubber after the Japanese invaded Southeast Asia. Polymerized butadiene looked promis-

ing and butadiene was available in the gas stream produced during petroleum refining. However, the refinery gas stream

contained a large number of components and an accurate and rapid analysis of the stream composition was critical to

successfully producing sufficient high-purity butadiene to meet the demand for synthetic rubber. The US Office of the

Rubber Reserve prompted three chemical companies: American Cyanamid, Dow Chemical and Shell Development to

each come up with a design for an IR spectrometer. Yes, that's right, the chemical companies were called on to design

the instrument – that's how new the idea of chemical instrumentation was, how few instrument manufacturing companies

there were and how chemical manufacturing corporations at that time spent their research dollars, i.e., being at the fore-

front of chemical research and analysis in their areas of expertise. Shell's R. Robert Brattain came up with the winning

design for an IR spectrometer which utilized Beckman's amplified signal circuitry. The Brattain design was turned over

to Beckman's NTL company for production and thus the Beckman IR-1 was created. IR was not only used to solve the

synthetic rubber manufacturing problem, it was also used to solve the structure of the new wonder drug,

penicillin. The American chemist, R. B. Woodward, and the equally famous British chemist, Sir Robert

Robertson, each came up with a structure, but it was Woodward's use of IR to support his proposed

thiazolidine-β-lactam structure which was found to be correct as shown by Dorothy Crowfoot's team of

x-ray crystallographers in the UK in February of 1945.

American Cyanamid, one of the companies asked to come up with an IR spectrometer design for butadiene analysis, was

among the first companies to use IR spectroscopy in the 1930s, and again, the Cyanamid employees built the equipment.

During WWII, Cyanamid partnered up with the Perkin-Elmer Corporation, which had been formed by two amateur as-

tronomers in 1937 as an optical design and consulting company. Because the US Office of the Rubber Reserve had

picked the Shell design leading to the Beckman IR-1, sales of the Beckman instrument were restricted until well after

WWII ended and it was never a commercial success. However, the Cyanamid/Perkin-Elmer collaboration was not under

such tight government control and Perkin-Elmer was able to market its products more freely, so it is not surprising the

P-E Model 21 became the first commercially successful double-beam IR spectrometer in 1950.

penicillin

Volume 38, number 3 The Alembic November 2011

Dale

The Alembic (November 2011)

Newsletter of the Central Wisconsin Section, ACS

c/o Chemistry Department (#605516)

University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point

Stevens Point, WI 54481

Member Address Label

Page 8

Central Wisconsin Section, ACS Meetings and Programs - 2011-2012

Date (Day) Location Speaker/Event Host

Nov 16, 2011 Marshfield Paul Fowler ( WIST, UW-SP ) Dana Haagenson

Feb 13, 2012 Wisconsin Rapids Dr. Jeff Bryan Dave Thiel

March 2012 LignoTech, Rothschild LignoTech Tour Tony Young / Jerry Gargulak

April 18, 2012 Stevens Point Willam Carroll OxyChem ( A CS ) TBA

May 2012 Eau Claire Awards Banquet Dave Lewis

Mark the above dates and locations on your calendar; plan now to attend and participate in the Section’s various meetings and activities. Future issues of the Alembic will give exact lo-cations and arrangements for these meetings. Of further interest are the following national and regional events:

Spring National Meeting, San Diego, CA - March 25-29, 2012

Chemists Celebrate Earth Day (CCED ) - April 22, 2012

Mark your calendar … plan to come:

Dr. Paul Fowler, E

xecutive Director WIST-

UWSP presents ―Renewable Raw Materials

& the Wisconsin Institute for Sustainable

Technology‖ at the Aldo Leopold Science

Building, UW-Wood County, Marshfield , W

I

Wednesday, November 16 at 7:30 PM