VOLUME 36, NUMBER 3 November 2010 The Alembic - 3 november 2010.pdf · VOLUME 36, NUMBER 3 November...

The AlembicNewsletter of the Central Wisconsin Section of the American Chemical Society

VOLUME 36, NUMBER 3 November 2010

Visit the ACS web site at … www.acs.org

Also, up-to-date information about our Section activities including the

Alembic and meeting notices is

found at..... www.uwsp.edu/chemistry/acscws/

November 2010 CWS ACS Meeting

“A Tour of the Marshfield Clinic Lab

Host: Dr. Mary Alice Kettrick

Director, Reference Laboratories

Where: Laird Center for Medical Research

Marshfield Clinic campus

Marshfield, WI 54449

6:00 PM, Erdman Lobby (second floor)

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Supper and Meeting to follow at the China Chef

233 S. Central Ave

Marshfield, WI 5449

2010 ACS - CWS

Mini-Directory

Chair Stephen Leiterman

307 5th Street

Mosinee, WI 54455

Phone: (715) 693-3998

E-mail: [email protected]

Chair-Elect Robin Tanke

Department of Chemistry

Univ. Wisc. - Stevens Point

Stevens Point, WI 54481

Phone: (715) 346-4325


Immediate Past Chair

David Thiel

Phone: (715) 887-4338


Secretary - Treasurer Tipton Randall

Phone: (715) 720-1969


Councilor C. Marvin Lang

Phone (715) 346-3609

Email: [email protected]

Alternate Councilor James Brummer

Phone: (715 346-2888


Newsletter Editor Dale Pillsbury

796N Pripps Road

Park Falls, WI 54552

Phone: (715)583-4426


Steve Leiterman

The Chair’s Corner - Farewell, but not Good-bye There comes a time in every man‟s life to be moving on. Unless we have

to make decisions at the executive committee meeting in December, this

will be my last Chair‟s Corner. As of this writing, I am continuing to

pursue candidates for the position of Chairman-Elect. While we have a

lot of good people in the section, it is difficult to find someone with suf-

ficient time to lead the section. Unfortunately, this is often the situation

with volunteer organizations. I know my time in office was a real learn-

ing experience for me and it reiterated how difficult it is for one to work

in any position today without good computer skills. However, one al-

ways learns better how things work by being on the inside. It certainly

provided a good spot for me to see how things run, learn who is active in

the section and discover what special things they do. Moving on, I‟ll

finish up with friends and fellow ACS members and I pray I‟ll continue

to make lasting friendships.

http://www.uwsp.edu/chemistry/acscws/

Volume 36, number 3 The Alembic 2010

In Memoriam We regretfully note the passing of

Nadine St. Louis, wife of long-time

Central Wisconsin Section mem-

ber, Bob St. Louis. Known as Dina

to her friends, she provided an in-

sightful and moving perspective of

her eight-year battle with neuroen-

docrine cancer in “Zebra”, her sec-

ond book of poetry. Dina earned

her PhD in English from UCLA in

1969 and was shortly thereafter

tenured in the English Department

at UW-Eau Claire, while Bob taught

in the Eau Claire Chemistry Department (1968-1998).

Dina also held a number of administrative positions

during her productive career with the University. She

spent the 1985-86 academic year participating in a fac-

ulty exchange at the University of Bielefeld, Germany,

where her growing interest in writing poetry blos-

somed. On returning to Eau Claire, she became depart-

ment head and continued writing poetry. In 2010, to

honor her academic and personal achievements in the

field, she was named the first Poet Laureate of Eau

Claire. She will be sorely missed by those who knew

her personally, or through her poetry, and will be well-

remembered as an outstanding example of how to fully

live life in the face of great adversity.

Sharp Photo & Portrait Eau Claire, WI

Stephanie Kwolek

was born near Pitts-

burg, PA in 1923

and received her BS

from Margaret Mor-

rison Carnegie Col-

lege. Financially

unable to continue

on to medical school, she

obtained a “temporary”

job at DuPont‟s textile fibers laboratory near Buffalo,

NY. She never pursued further formal education,

finding she enjoyed her work and could learn what

she needed at DuPont‟s facilities.

Her excellent work earned her a transfer to DuPont‟s

Pioneering Research Lab in 1950, where she pursued

very basic polymer research. In 1965 Ms. Kwolek

was exploring aramides as improved fibers for car

tires. She found polymerization of p-amino-benzoic

acid chloride gave a very high-melting product. Solu-

tion of the polybenzamide required the use of N-

methyl pyrrolidone with added CaCl2 to help sever

the strong intermolecular hydrogen bonding. How-

ever, the solution appeared cloudy and the technician

who ran the spinneret machine believed it would clog

the very fine holes used to create threads from poly-

mers. She filtered the solution and after several days

of arguing her case, the technician relented and the

first Kevlar-like fiber was created. It was 5 times as

strong as steel (wt :wt). It was later found the solu-

tion opalescence was due to liquid crystal formation.

Kevlar was commercialized in 1971. Terephthaloyl

chloride and p-phenylene diamine are now reacted in

an elegant two-step solution polycondensation proc-

ess to yield poly(p-phenylene terephthalamide). It is

spun into fiber as a solution in 100% sulfuric acid.

Stephanie Kwolek was awarded the Perkin Medal,

inducted in the prestigious National Inventors Hall of

Fame, awarded the ACS award for "Creative Inven-

tion" and the Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement

Award with its $100,000 prize. Ironically, Ms

Kwolek‟s commitment to excellence as a chemist

very likely ended up saving many more lives than if

she had become a physician.

Kevlar Aramide

Men and Molecules

See video clip about Stephane Kwolek @ www.youtube.com/watch?

v=8dX3Z5CyF3c&feature=player_embedded#

!

The Editor ’s Desk

This month the Section will be visiting the Laird

Center for Medical Research on the Marshfield

Clinic campus in Marshfield. From information gra-

ciously provided by Marshfield, it is clear we will be

touring a top-notch research facility. The “Men and

Molecules” vignette is about Stephanie Kwolek,

who wanted to be a physician, but ended up work-

ing for DuPont — with much gratitude from a great

number of law enforcement and military personnel.

Robin Tanke‟s report on National Chemistry Week

(NCW) appears with pictures on pages 5 and 6. All

parties involved in the NCW activities appear to be

enjoying themselves thoroughly. Robin deserves a

Well Done! from the Section for her efforts as NCW

coordinator. Finally, I want to note that we urgently

need a person to be the 2011 Chairman-Elect.

Please think seriously about helping out the Section

by somehow finding the time in your busy schedule

to serve in this important position.

Dale Pillsbury

Host: Dr. Mary Alice Kettrick

Director, Reference Laboratories, Marshfield Labs

Where: Laird Center for Medical Research

Marshfield Clinic campus

Marshfield, WI 54449

6:00, Erdman Lobby (second floor)

A Tour of the Laird Center for Medical Research


The dinner and section meeting will be held after the tour at 7:15 at the China Chef, 233 S. Central Ave, Marshfield.

Contact Cristina Altobelli by Noon on November 11 [ ( 715 ) 346-2888 or e-mail [email protected]] for reservations.

Marshfield Clinic In 1916, physicians K.W. Doege, William Hipke, Victor Mason, Walter Sexton, H. H. Milbee

and Roy P. Potter incorporated a joint practice which they named Marshfield Clinic. Today, Marshfield Clinic serves

communities in Wisconsin and includes two hospitals and 52 clinical centers in its system of care.

A Brief History of Research at Marshfield The six founding physicians hosted meetings of fellow doctors to dis-

cuss medical advancements and practices. By 1959, the Clinic‟s Board of Directors established a formal program of

research with the University of Wisconsin in internal medicine, dermatology, syphilogy, pathology, otolaryngology

and surgery. Also, that year, a research foundation was created at Marshfield.

A National Institutes of Health grant, in 1960, funded the study of farmer‟s lung disease and this work ultimately led

to The National Farm Medicine Center in 1981. Clinical research is the largest research program at Marshfield

Clinic. At any one time, 450 clinical trials and other protocols are under way with approximately half of the active

clinical research studies related to cancer.

The Marshfield Epidemiologic Research Center was founded in 1991 and focuses on improved medical care and

more effective public health policies. Current research includes infectious diseases, antibiotic resistance, vaccine

safety and prevention of diabetes and obesity.

Marshfield Clinic became recognized internationally in the early 1990s with the discovery of short tandem repeat

poly-morphisms, which revolutionized the study of human genetics. The Center for Medical Genetics (CMG),

founded in 1994, focused its initial research on discovering the structure of the human genome. In 2001, Marshfield

Clinic Research Foundation (MCRF) established a second genetic research center, The Personalized Medicine Re-

search Center. Personalized medicine is an individually tailored health care approach to the prevention, detection and

treatment of disease based on knowledge of an individual‟s genetic profile. On October 1, 2004, MCRF merged the

Center for Medical Genetics and the Center for Personalized Medicine Research into the new Center for Human Ge-

netics to better position the Center for discoveries in the structure of the human genome, genetic basis of complex

disease, genetic epidemiology, pharmacogenetics and population genetics.

In September 2005, MCRF added a fifth research center, The Biomedical Informatics Research Center. Its mission is

to discover new knowledge in medical informatics; support a broad range of basic, applied, and clinical research

with biomedical informatics and biostatistics support; and provide stewardship for research informatics assets.

Two new structures adjacent to Marshfield Clinic were subsequently built to accommodate the increased need for

research space. The first building was named in honor of Ben R. Lawton, M.D., a Clinic cardiothoracic surgeon and

researcher, and the second in honor of former Congressman and Defense Secretary Melvin R. Laird, a Marshfield

native and benefactor. In 2008, an expansion of the original Laird Center for Medical Research was completed.

See Page 4 for a map to the Laird Center

& directions to The China Chef

Marshfield Area

Showing Marshfield-

Clinic Buidings

Note Laird Center in

red near center of map

(off of the north side of

Kalsched St between

Oak St. and St. Joseph

Ave.)

Parking in Lot L in front of Laird Center for Medical Research

Directions to the China Chef (233 S. Central Ave (WI 97S)

1. Go Left out of Parking lot L onto Kalsched St. going east to Oak St. Turn RIGHT onto Oak St..

2. Continue on Oak St about 4/10 mile until you come to W Doege St. Turn Left onto W. Doege St.

3. Continue on W. Doege St. 4/10 mile until you come to N. Central Ave / WI 97. Turn Right on N. Central Ave/ WI 97.

4. Continue on N. Central Ave, crossing First St./ WI 13, where N. Central Ave/ WI 97 becomes S. Central Ave/ BR 13.

5. Continue to the China Chef, 233 S. Central Ave, on the left side of the street (715) 384-9004. Parking in back .

N

Detail of Area near

Laird Center for

Medical Research

Note Parking Lot L

to east of

Laird Center

This is where you

should park


Maps & Directions - November Meeting

Volume 36, number 3 The Alembic 2010 Volume 36, number 3 The Alembic 2010

Stevens Point Boys and Girls Club For National Chemistry Week, the UWSP Student ACS group sponsored a

chemistry night at the Stevens Point Boys and Girls Club on Wednesday, October 20th. Drew Cunningham, Syngen

Grede, Austin Henderson, Amanda Nevins, Ashley Orozco, Tracey Oudenhoven, Qianwei Ren, Alyce Ruhoff, Randy

Siedschlag, Eric Terrell, and Albert Webster excited about 25 boys and girls and several parents and mentors about

chemistry.

Outside, they demonstrated how the properties of bananas, balloons and racquet balls change when cooled to liquid

nitrogen temperature. Then they added Mentos™ to soda, and we saw the Coke™ spray. Inside, the group explored

the making of nylon and the properties of soap.

After the demon-

strations were

complete, the boys

and girls were able

to make their own

slime, marbled pa-

per, and do chro-

matography art.

An excellent time

was had by all.

Chromatography Art Paper Marbling

Nylon 6,6 Rope Demonstration

The Properties of Soap Demonstration

Making Slime Making Slime & Paper Marbling

Continued on Page 6

National Chemistry Week 2010

“ B ehind the Scenes with Chemistry! ” - Fun for Students and Presenters

Just a reminder that on February 17, the Section will

hold a Meeting in Miniature at UW-Marshfield cam-

pus. Your presentation need not be highly polished nor

extremely technical. We are looking for diversity and

hoping to learn more about the professional lives of our

colleagues. If you can give a talk or present a poster,

please contact Dave Thiel at (715) 887-4338 or E-

mail: [email protected].

Grant Elementary In a third grade class at Grant

Elementary we made sugar glass that students en-

joyed punching and breaking ... and without hurting

themselves!! We also did an experiment to deter-

mine which type of fake snow makes the best fake

snowmen. Of the mixtures tested, the students all

agreed that 60 mL of water added to 1.25 mL of

polymer gave the best snowman.

I‟m grateful to Margaret O‟Connor Govett and Gary

Shulfer for supporting this and other outreach pro-

grams by collecting supplies and offering sugges-

tions.

Posters We received two entries for the NCW

poster contest: “A Chemist Making Smoke” by

Hope Jepson, a Grant Elementary (Wisconsin Rap-

ids) third grader

and “Behind the Scenes” by Jaclyn Thompson a

North High School (Eau Claire) student.

Since they are in different judging categories, both

posters were sent to the national competition.


National Chemistry Week ( con t ’d )

A career symposium was held at UW-Madison on Oc-

tober 23, hosted by the UW-Madison Younger Chem-

ists Committee. According to Christine McInnis, chair

of the committee, more than 138 people attended, in-

cluding 12 students from UW-SP. The presentations

were quite diverse by both topic and flavor and all

were well-received by the audience. Ms. McInnis also

noted that C&E News Deputy Editor-in-Chief Maureen

Rouhi very kindly wrote about the symposium in

C&EN's blog (http://cenblog.org/the-editors-

blog/2010/10/kudos-for-career-symposium-of-ycc-

wisconsin/) and it should be mentioned in next week's

print edition.

Career Symposium Follow-up

Anyone who has ever cooked or eaten a turkey knows

the problem: Cook the turkey at too high a heat and

you get dry white meat, cook a turkey at too low a heat

and you get underdone dark meat. The dilemma is

that the proteins in dark meat require a higher tempera-

ture to break down than those in white meat. One solu-

tion is to brine the turkey, i.e., just keep the room tem-

perature turkey in a salt brine for some period of time

and presto!, the meat is juicier when cooked. The

question becomes, “Why?” Most food chemists agree

that one way or another, more salt and water gets into

the turkey through brining. Once the salt and water is

within the turkey meat, it denatures the proteins by

breaking hydrogen bonding between protein strands.

The denatured proteins can then hydrogen bond to wa-

ter and this helps keep the turkey moist. There is a lot

of hand waving about exactly how water and salt dif-

fuses out of the brine and across the cell membranes of

the turkey meat, but it sounds as if there should be at

least one graduate student‟s worth of an NIH grant

available to settle this question. And the undoubtedly

underpaid graduate student will have plenty of meat to

eat while they earn their doctorate.

The Turkey Dilemma

Robin Tanke

NCW coordinator & Section Chairman-elect

A Call for Presentations

Meeting in Miniature —

http://cenblog.org/the-editors-blog/2010/10/kudos-for-career-symposium-of-ycc-wisconsin/



Antoine Lavoisier (Law of Conservation of Matter, Chemical Nomenclature) Lavoisier was born to

wealth in Paris in 1743. Working with Pierre-Simon Laplace, he debunked the phlogiston theory of com-

bustion and clearly formulated the law of the conservation of mass. Mikhail Lomonosov had expressed

these ideas in 1748, based on experiments of his own, but Lavoisier‟s work and his clear statement of the

law in his 1789 textbook of chemistry spread its acceptance. The combined efforts of Lavoisier, Claude-

Louis Berthollet, Antoine Fourcroy and Guyton de Morveau produced a much-improved system of chemi-

cal nomenclature, facilitating communication among chemists. Educated in chemistry, Lavoisier‟s wife,

Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, served more as a colleague than a simple assistant in his laboratory work. Lavoisier was

guillotined during the Reign of Terror at the age 50.

David

Jeremias Richter & Joseph Proust (Law of Definite Proportions, Stoichiometry) Richter was

born in 1762 in Jelenia Gora, Poland, while Proust was born in Angers, France in 1754. Based on

Richter‟s acid/base titrations, in 1792 he introduced the concept of definite proportions in reac-

tions and the word “stoichiometry”. Proust‟s experiments with copper carbonate, the two tin ox-

ides and two iron sulfides also led him to state the Law of Definite Proportions in a paper in 1794

wherein reactants react with each other in definite, fixed proportions, thereby helping to systema-

tize the idea of fixed reaction stoichiometries.

Richter Proust

Thanks-Giving — From One Chemist ’s Perspective

John Dalton (Atomic Theory) Dalton was born in 1766 in Eaglesfield, England. Based on work by

earlier chemists interested in the relations between gas pressure, volume, mass and temperature (eg

Boyle 1662, Amonton 1699*), as well as his own work with the reaction of oxygen and hydrogen to

form water, Dalton proposed the first real atomic theory. This theory stated elements are composed of

atoms and compounds are materials made of atoms of different types somehow bonded together. Com-

pounds have fixed compositions because there is a fixed ratio of atoms and each atom has its own

weight. Chemical reactions result in a rearrangement of the atoms in the reacting compounds. *(Note Amonton‟s 1699

experiments were repeated by Charles 1787 & Gay-Lussac 1802 and they often receive credit for Amonton‟s work )

Amadeo Avogadro & Stanislao Cannizzaro (Atomic number, moles) Avogadro was born in

1776 in Turin, Italy while his student, Cannizzaro, was born in 1826 in Palermo, Sicily. In 1811,

Avogadro presented the theory that the relationship between the masses of the same volume of

different gases (at the same temperature and pressure) corresponds to the relationship between

their respective molecular weights. Hence, the relative molecular mass of a gas can be calculated

from the mass of sample of known volume. Part of the previous confusion was, that in most

cases, experimenters thought of gases as being monoatomic, i.e., O vs O2, H vs H2 or N vs N2.

However, Avogadro‟s ideas did not receive widespread acceptance until Cannizzaro attended the first international chem-

istry conference in Karlruhe, Germany in 1860. There, he restated these ideas in his talk and in a pamphlet, in so clear a

manner that, paraphrasing one chemist‟s comments: „The scales dropped from my eyes and I understood‟.

Avogadro Cannizzarro


Joseph Black (Analytical Balance, Latent & Specific Heat) Black was born in Bordeaux, France in 1728.

He was educated in Scotland and developed a greatly improved analytical balance, ca 1750. The greater

accuracy of the improved balance proved critical to succeeding chemists‟ efforts to understand the differ-

ence between chemical mass and chemical number and permitted the unraveling of the puzzle of chemical

stoichiometry. Black also explored and understood the idea of latent heat of melting and vaporization, as

well as the concept of specific heat, thereby contributing to the basis for thermodynamics.

Ibn al-Haytham (Scientific Method) Ibn al-Haytham was born ca 965 AD in Basra, Iraq. While some

science historians disagree about how “codified” his approach to science was ( relative to our modern con-

cepts of the scientific method), Ibn al-Haytham insisted the truth could be learned only through rigorous

physical experimentation and thorough testing of any hypotheses or conclusions. This was being done

while Europe labored under the fetters of an “appeal to authority” (usually church dogma or Aristotle) ap-

proach to science.

Dale

On a personal basis, each of us undoubtedly has many good reasons to be thankful at this time of year. However, as a

group, we chemists can be thankful to a number of early progenitors who often go unrecognized for taking us from the

mysticism of alchemy to the science of chemistry. I refer to those men who may not have necessarily discovered a new

element or reaction, but who helped to clarify our thinking about atoms, molecules, what reactions are and how chemicals

interact, and all without the benefit of our modern chemical “common sense”. Here are a few of my favorites:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Proust_joseph.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ibn_al-Haytham.png

Mark your calendar … plan to come:

“A Tour of the Laird Center for Medical

Research” at the Marshfield Clinic

Marshfield, WI

November 11 at 6 PM

The Alembic (November 2010)

Newsletter of the Central Wisconsin Section, ACS

c/o Chemistry Department (#605516)

University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point

Stevens Point, WI 54481

Member Address Label

Central Wisconsin Section, ACS Meetings and Programs - 2010/2011

Date (Day) Location Speaker Host Nov 11, 2010 (Thurs) Marshfield Laird Center for Medical Research Tour Dr. Mary Alice Kettrick Feb 17, 2011 UW-Wood County “Meeting-in-Miniature” Dave Thiel & Amanda Hakemian Mar, 2011 Stevens Point Paul Helquist (ACS Tour) Robin Tanke April, 2011 to be announced Robert Blackledge (ACS Tour) to be announced September, 2011 to be announced Glenn Roy (ACS Tour) to be announced

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 locations and arrangements for these meetings. Of

further interest are the following national and regional events: 66th Southwest & 62nd Southern ACS Regional Meeting Nov 30—Dec 4 New Orleans, LA Spring National ACS Meeting - March 27-25, 2011: Anaheim, California Chemists Celebrate Earth Day (CCED) - April 22, 2011

VOLUME 36, NUMBER 3 November 2010 The Alembic - 3 november 2010.pdf · VOLUME 36, NUMBER 3 November...

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