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Analytical Chemistry Division Visiting Lectures 2003
by
Professor Sandy Dasgupta
Many members of the Division will remember that our last Division conference was Interact conducted in Sydney in July 2002. Our next conference is being planned for 2004 and will be run by the Brisbane Analytical Chemistry Group. In continuing the tradition of the Division, a series of Visiting Lectures will be held in between our biennial conference. The Division is delighted to announce that Professor Sandy Dasgupta will be the Visiting Lecturer in 2003. Professor Dasgupta is a Paul Whitfield Horn Professor at the Department of Chemistry, Texas Tech University, USA (e-mail: Sandy.Dasgupta@ttu.edu; URL:http://www.ttu.edu/~chem/faculty/dasgupta/dasgupta.htm). You can learn more about Professor Dasgupta by downloading his resume here.
Professor Dasgupta will be delivering lectures covering a number of topics. To date, we have planned for Professor Dasgupta to visit the Analytical Chemistry Groups in Western Australia, Northern Territory, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. His itinerary is set out below. You can read an abstract of each of the following talks:
Itinerary
Title of talk: Drops and thin films and analytical chemistry in small places
Time / Date: 3:30 pm, Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Venue: Norm Dufty Lecture theatre, Curtin University, Bentley
Cost: Free (sponsored by RACI WA Analytical Chemistry Group)
For further details, please contact Dr Rick Staker (e-mail: Rick_Staker@sgs.com; tel: (08) 9458 7278; fax: (08) 9451 3505)
Title of talk: Drops and thin films and analytical chemistry in small places
Time / Date: 5:15 pm, Monday, February 24, 2003
Venue: Law Theatre (Room 39.1.39), Arts/Law Building (Building 39), Casuarina Campus, Northern Territory University
Cost: Free
For further details, please contact Dr Brian Salter-Duke (e-mail: b_duke@octa4.net.au; tel: (02) 8988 1600; fax: (08) 8988 1302)
Title of talk: Science and Scientists: Culpability and the Passage of Innocence
Time / Date: 5:00 pm, Friday, February 14, 2003
Venue: Food Science Australia Auditorium, 11 Julius Avenue, North Ryde (Riverside Corporate Park, Delhi Road)
Cost: $15 for RACI members; $20 for non-RACI members; free for students
For further details, please contact Dr Clarrie Ng (e-mail: clarrie_ng@arnotts.com; tel: (02) 8767 7688; fax: (03) 8767 7669)
Title of talk: Drops and Thin Films and Analytical Chemistry in Small Places
Time / Date: 3:30 pm, Friday, February 21, 2003
Venue: RMIT University, Building 3, Room 3.1.09
Cost: Free
For further details, please contact Professor Philip Marriott (e-mail: philip.marriott@rmit.edu.au; tel: (03) 99252632; fax: (03) 9639 1321)
This lecture will be held as a joint event between the Tasmanian Analytical Chemistry Group and the Tasmania Branch.
Title of talk: Science and Scientists: Culpability and the Passage of Innocence
Time / Date: 5:30 pm, Tuesday, February 11, 2003
Venue: Room C2, School of Chemistry, University of Tasmania
Cost: Free
For further details, please contact Professor Paul Haddad (e-mail: paul.haddad@utas.edu.au; tel: (03) 6226 2179; fax: (03) 6226 2858)
You are welcome to attend Professor Dasgupta’s lecture(s) in your own or other State.
Science and Scientists: Culpability and the Passage of Innocence*
Purnendu K. (Sandy) Dasgupta
Department of Chemistry
Texas Tech University
Lubbock, Texas 79409-1061
When we are younger, more of us have aspirations of being artists than anything else. I was not any different. The realities of making a living made me chose a different discipline, which I have thoroughly enjoyed since. Nevertheless, the odd question has always plagued me: Should scientists bear responsibility for their discoveries and inventions and what is done with such?
I begin by exploring one of the favorite themes of Kurt Vonnegut. He says that the role of an artist is like that of the proverbial canary in the coal mine. I would have to ask: How good are scientists predicting the future (and future use) of science? Even though scientists do not have exactly a shining track record in such predictions, Vonnegut insists that scientists must bear culpability for their studies, actions and inventions. How much progress have we made in this regard? Did Louis Feiser really feel bad for having invented the napalm? Or is it, as he said, not a scientist’s business to deal with political and moral problems?
There is no intrinsic good or evil in objects. I would like to explore the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde roles of Thalidomide. How much does a scientist control what happens with his new creation? Can it really be good that a drug that is the best cure for sleeping sickness can only make it for that purpose because it removes unwanted facial hair?
What scientists do can profoundly change things much farther away and much further beyond their intentions and dreams. I would like to tell you the stories of Indigo planters in British India and Adolf Von Bayer trying to oxidize naphthalene in his laboratory in far-away Germany.
Finally, I do want to be really optimistic: that things are really changing. Maybe we do pay more heed today to what the ancient Indian Chief Seeath (after whom Seattle, Washington is named) supposedly wrote to the President in Washington, expressing his wonder, how could we buy or sell the sky? Or the land?
*This talk is intended for a general audience and has been so presented in numerous places. No particular expertise in chemistry or any other science is needed.
Drops and Thin Films and Analytical Chemistry in Small Places
Purnendu K. (Sandy) Dasgupta
Department of Chemistry
Texas Tech University
Lubbock, Texas 79409-1061
Things generally turn out differently from what one envisions. When I first came to Texas Tech and the West Texas hamlet of Lubbock, I did not know that rainfall constitutes an event. By this time I had also been educated enough to know that raindrops are not so pristine, they accumulate material both in their life as cloud droplets and as they fall through the atmosphere. Indeed sequential analysis of rain can isolate the two contributions. The idea of hanging drops out for sampling gases was thus born and led to many interesting avenues- what can you do with drops? Hanging drops? Pendant drops? Sessile drops? Scissile drops? Falling drops?
The second ongoing adventure I will like to talk about the many unique characteristics of flows in small spaces. The interesting thing is that only one of the relevant dimensions needs to be small. Liquids flowing on a confined two-dimensional plane can be harnessed to demonstrate interfacial reactions, measure concentrations or physical properties such as viscosity. To the colorful at heart it may be the chemistry in Art Noveau form but it has extensive applications in array based analysis.........
Automated Atmospheric Trace Gas and Particle Composition Measurement with Ion Chromatography Based Instrumentation
Purnendu K. (Sandy) Dasgupta
Department of Chemistry
Texas Tech University
Lubbock, Texas 79409-1061
Atmospheric measurements and Ion Chromatography (IC) has had a long relationship. Indeed, some claim that the commercial success of IC was intimately dependent on the fact that it was the first technique that could reliably and painlessly analyze for atmospheric particulate sulfate collected on filters. The science of real-time or near real-time measurement of atmospheric gases and particles is still in its infancy. Some 25 years after the technique became available, most people still collect samples on air sampling filters and bring them to the laboratory for extraction and IC analysis.
Our research group has been engaged in developing automated, mostly IC-based measurement of ionogenic soluble atmospheric gases (this includes all acid gases and ammonia) and the soluble ionic constituents of atmospheric particulate matter. In this lecture, this process will be outlined, both theory and practice, culminating in the present design now in use. Although the nature of research ensures that perfection remains elusive and the approach and the exact design continue to evolve, the present design is particularly robust and versatile.
Soluble Gases are removed with a parallel plate denuder with microstructured surfaces made from Plexiglas® that renders them wettable. The plates are wetted with a continuous flow of dilute H2O2 solution. The liquid effluent from the denuder is concentrated on one of a pair of sequential cation and anion exchange columns. Every 15 min. sampling is switched from one pair of columns to the other. Before elution, each column is washed in-line with water. The cation exchanger is eluted with NaOH and the liberated NH3 is measured conductometrically by passage on one side of a microporous membrane with water flowing on the other side as a receiver. The anion preconcentration column is part of an anion chromatography system and conventional anion chromatographic analysis is carried out.
The gas phase effluent from the denuder contains the aerosol. The aerosol is collected by a special mist chamber using a hydrophobic filter acting like a reflux condenser. The aerosol is collected, the soluble portion dissolves and is sent to the IC analysis system which can consist of two separate IC’s or an unit time shared between gas and particle analysis.
LODs for both gaseous and particulate analytes are in the low to sub-ng/m3 range. Field deployment arrangements and atmospheric measurement data from various field campaigns will be discussed.