The Syracuse Chemist
On-line edition January 2006
Contents:
February Meeting
Election Results
National
Award, Nominations Requested
Chemical Anniversaries | Message From The Chair
ACS Scholars Program Accepting Applications
Second Career Chemical Education Scholarships Available
Meeting Information | Publication Deadlines
Back
February Speaker Abstract
Emeritus Professor Henry Bungay
Dept. of Chemical Engineering
Renselear Polytechnic Institute
"Bioenergy without hype"
Energy from biomass has an exciting future, but the wild claims of those who think that it can replace much of our dependence on foreign oil are appalling. It is naive to view biomass as the panacea for the coming energy crisis because there is not enough in practical locations and its costs will be relatively high. The world will not run out of energy, but cheap energy may disappear. The exact economics are clouded by a myriad of subsidies for all of the competing energy sources and by world politics. Biomass feedstocks of most interest are sugarcane, corn, trees, and algae. Algae grow rapidly but require flat land for ponds, and such lands with plentiful water command top prices for agriculture. Sugarcane and corn exhaust the soil and require fertilizer and expensive cultivation. Trees are attractive because forests are sustainable and trees can do well on abandoned farms that could not compete with the fertile lands of the mid-western states. This assessment of biomass supply and conversion technologies provides global perspectives and exposes some alternatives as so impractical as to be almost fraudulent. Burning of wood has shifted from a prominent source of energy a century ago to a small but important contributor today. There will always be simple combustion of biomass with attractive economics where natural gas, coal, or petroleum are not readily available. Making gas or oil from biomass can only have tiny margins of profit because of intense competition from conventional producers. Biomass refining to furnish liquid motor fuels and byproduct chemicals is already practical and can be scaled up many fold. The upshot is that hydrolysis of biomass to its component sugars (and a major byproduct, lignin) should lead to a profitable, environmentally benign new fermentation industry while having a small but significant impact on overall consumption of energy.
Biographical Sketch
Emeritus Professor Henry Bungay has held academic, industrial, and government positions. He has worked at Eli Lilly (Indianapolis) and Worthington Biochemical Corporation (Freehold, NJ), the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. He was a professor at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and Clemson University before coming to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He coordinated a US/USSR cooperative program for enzyme technology and has visited India, Brazil, and Indonesia as part of National Academy of Sciences teams on biomass. He is a Fellow of the AIChE, and his honors include the James Van Lanen Distinguished Service Award and the Marvin Johnson Award from the Biotechnology Division of the American Chemical Society. He has over 200 publications and has authored five books including Energy, The Biomass Options, which received an award as best technical book from the American Association of Publishers.
Dr. Bungay was raised in Syracuse, and he received his Ph.D. from Syracuse University. He reports that he likes to return to the area when he gets the opportunity.
TOPBallots for the election of 2006 section officers were counted at the executive committee meeting on January 9. 78 ballots were returned. All of the nominees on the ballot were elected by near unanimous majorities of the votes cast.
Robert Stankavage, who works in development of chemical and enzymatic processes at Bristol-Myers Squibb, was elected chair-elect. He had previously been part of the executive committee as district delegate from Madison County. As 2006 chair-elect, he will become section chair in 2007.
Sharon Coolican, Associate Professor of Science at Cayuga Community College, was elected secretary. She also moves to a new position in the executive committee from a district delegate post.
James Kallmerten and Dale Staplin were returned to positions they occupied in 2005. Kallmerten, Professor of Chemistry at Syracuse University, was re-elected to the post of councilor, a position in which he has served the section since 1993. Staplin, of Shiva Technologies, continues as the section’s treasurer.
The ballot also contained questions about electronic communications between the section’s officers and membership.
•Question 1: Would you participate in an e-mail distribution list for the local section to keep you informed and up-to-date?
•Question 2: Would you like the executive committee to explore the conversion of the Syracuse Chemist to an electronic newsletter that could viewed or downloaded from the section’s Web site?
Returned ballots answered both questions yes by proportions of about six to one. The Executive Committee will consider a range of options for the Syracuse Chemist, including distribution primarily by electronic means (with print distribution only by explicit request), distribution both electronically and in print (as has been the case in recent years), and several options in between (such as print distribution for meeting notices and electronic distribution of other material). Making the section newsletter a valuable and effective means of communication is an important item for both the current executive committee and the newsletter editor. Members are encouraged to contact section chair, Carmen Giunta at 445-4128 or
giunta@lemoyne.edu with ideas and opinions about the future of the Syracuse Chemist.
NATIONAL AWARDS - CALL FOR NOMINATIONS
The American Chemical Society Awards Program is one of the means by which the Society meets its obligation "to encourage...the advancement of chemistry in all its branches, the promotion of research in chemical science and industry, [and] the improvement of the qualifications and usefulness of chemists." The continuing excellence of the ACS awards program requires that a number of highly qualified chemistry professionals be nominated and that great care be taken in preparing the nominations.
Nominating Procedure for ACS National Awards
Nominations for 56 national awards administered by the ACS to be presented in 2007 are being solicited.
Chemical anniversaries in 2006
Here are a few of the round-numbered anniversaries of chemical events or birthdays of famous chemists that will come up in 2006.
1706
Benjamin Franklin’s 300th birthday was on Jan. 17. Franklin is best known, of course, as a founding father of the United States. He was also a prominent scientist, though (or rather a "natural philosopher," to use the term then in use). His best known work was on electricity. Chemistry was not his main interest; however, he did correspond with Joseph Priestley, including some exchanges on gases.
Émilie du Châtelet was born on Dec. 17. Best known for her work in mathematics and her relationship with Voltaire, she also wrote on the chemical nature of fire.
1856
William Henry Perkin made mauveine, the first aniline dye in spring 1856, obtaining a provisional patent on Aug. 26.
J. J. Thomson was born on Dec. 18. Thomson characterized cathode rays in 1897, identifying them as basic building blocks of matter. (This is often described as the discovery of the electron.) Thomson later incorporated these particles, which he called corpuscles, into his "plum pudding" model of the atom. He received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1906.
1906
The Pure Food and Drug Act was signed by President Roosevelt on June 6.
Several Nobel laureates were born in 1906:
-Ernst Boris Chain, 1945 medicine laureate for work on penicillin, was born on June 19.
-Maria Goeppert-Mayer, 1963 physics laureate for work on nuclear shell structure, was born on June 28.
-Vladimir Prelog, 1975 chemistry laureate for work on organic stereochemistry, was born on July 23.
-Luis Leloir, 1970 chemistry laureate for work on nucleotide sugars and their role in biosynthesis of carbohydrates, was born on Sept. 6.
-George Wald, 1967 medicine laureate for work on the chemistry of vision, was born on Nov. 18.
Chemistry-related Nobel prizes awarded in 1906 included the chemistry prize to Henri Moissan and (as mentioned above) the physics prize to J. J. Thomson. Moissan was the first scientist to isolate the element fluorine. His prize recognized the isolation and subsequent investigations of that element as well as an electric furnace he invented.
1956
Marhall Gates and G. Tschudi announced the synthesis of a complex natural product, morphine, on April 5.
Chemistry-related Nobel prizes awarded in 1956 included the chemistry prize to Cyril Hinshelwood and Nikolai Semenov and the physics prize to William Shockley, John Bardeen (his first of two), and Walter Houser Brattain. Hinshelwood and Semenov shared the chemistry prize for work on chemical kinetics and mechanisms. The physics prize was awarded in a field we might now characterize as materials science, for work on semiconductors and the transistor effect.
1981
The first atom of element 107, eventually named Bohrium (Bh) was observed at GSI Laboratories, Darmstadt, Germany on Feb. 24.
As the new calendar year begins, I wish a prosperous 2006 to all members of the Syracuse Section and to your friends and families.
Let me introduce myself to those of you I do not know. My name is Carmen Giunta, and I am a professor of chemistry at Le Moyne College. I have lived in the Syracuse area for just over 15 years, since joining the Le Moyne faculty in 1990. I have been active in the Syracuse Section for much of that time, particularly in its education programs. I am also an officer in the ACS Division of the History of Chemistry and an associate editor of the Bulletin for the History of Chemistry.
Thanks to section volunteers and leaders
From my perspective as new chair, I see the section as an organization fortunate to have some very active volunteers serving their communities and profession in a variety of ways that I hope to see continue. The 2005 recipient of the Syracuse Section award, Tess Freedman of Syracuse University, embodies that volunteer spirit to an exemplary degree. Tess has served the section in a variety of ways on the executive committee, including as section chair. She has also served the community through the section for many years by organizing two of the section’s most important educational outreach activities, Chemistry Day at the MOST and chemistry judging in the Greater Syracuse Scholastic Science Fair. Congratulations, Tess, on your well-deserved recognition from the section, and thank you.
Thanks are also in order for Melissa Hellman, the outgoing section chair, for leading the section for a term and a half. She began her term a semester early at the beginning of the previous chair’s sabbatical leave. Melissa plans to remain active in the section as well as in the Younger Chemists Committee (YCC) at the national level.
The last volunteer (for the moment) whom I want to mention and thank is the section’s new chair elect, Robert Stankavage. As you know, ACS is a society that embraces both the ivory tower and the marketplace. For the last several years, however, section leadership has come predominantly from academic institutions. Robert will be the first chair from industry in many years. I hope that with his assistance and that of treasurer Dale Staplin of Shiva Technologies, the section can again involve its members in industry and become useful to those members.
Plans for the year and hopes for the future
Communication within the section and educational outreach are the areas I intend to emphasize in the current year. The recent section election contained two questions on electronic communications, and the answers to those questions direct the executive committee to explore an electronic version of the Syracuse Chemist and email communication. Making the section newsletter a more valuable and effective means of communication is an important item for both the current executive committee and the newsletter editor.
Expanded content is one way of making the newsletter more valuable. What interesting programs, activities, or services are occurring at your workplace? Is your company offering a new product or service that may be useful or attractive to other chemists? The Syracuse Chemist may be an appropriate site for announcements, advertisements, or both. Have you or your colleagues or students received awards for teaching or research excellence? We would like to recognize such achievements in the Syracuse Chemist.
On the education front, we intend to continue existing programs such as the National Chemistry Olympiad and judging in the Greater Syracuse Scholastic Science Fair. The section will earmark money for student awards and scholarships. Many of the section’s dinner meetings will address topics that I hope are of interest to area high school teachers or their students. I intend to publicize such meetings to teachers—which has not been done in the past.
What should the section be doing?
I’ll close by inviting each member to become active in whatever activities of the section appeal to your interests or talents. And if there are no activities that match those interests or talents, I am open to suggestions! Feel free to give me a call at (315) 445-4128 or drop me an email at giunta @ lemoyne.edu.
ACS Scholars Program Accepting Applications
The American Chemical Society (ACS) Scholars Program is now accepting applications for the 2006-2007 academic year. This renewable, undergraduate scholarship is for African American, American Indian and Hispanic/Latino students majoring in a chemical science and planning a career in that science. Now beginning its twelfth year, the ACS Scholars Program has identified over 1600 scholarship recipients and disbursed more than $8.2 million since inception in 1994. More information and the application documents are available on the web at http://chemistry.org/scholars, by calling toll-free 1-800-227-5558, ext. 6250, by sending an e-mail request to scholars@acs.org, or by writing to American Chemical Society Scholars Program, 1155 16th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036. Application deadline is March 1, 2006.
Second Career Chemical Education Scholarships Available
Attention Persons Interested in Becoming Second Career Chemistry Teachers The Hach Scientific Foundation would like to offer second career chemical education scholarships to chemists. Scholarship money is available for second career chemistry teachers! The Hach Scientific Foundation is a private multi-million dollar foundation dedicated to chemistry and chemical education. The Hach Scientific Foundation is providing scholarships across the country to chemists interested in pursuing a Masters in education and teachers certificate. For more information, visit: http://www.hachscientificfoundation.org/teachers.shtml
ACS Syracuse Section Meeting Schedule
February March
February 9, 2005
LeMoyne College Curtin Special Events room
Le Moyne Dining Center
Dr. John F. Hamilton, Jr.
Kodak Research Labs, Rochester
"Color Interpolation for Digital Images"
April (to be determined)
May: Monday, May 8: Ralph Blomster, (University of Maryland at Baltimore), "Plants as a Source of Drugs"
February
2006 issue deadline is
January 31, 200