Publication in the New Journal of Chemistry

This paper is a collaboration between researchers at IU South Bend and Murray State University. IU South Bend coauthors are our organic chemistry professor, Dr. Kasey Clear, and chemistry major Taylor Boyd-Becker who was awarded a SMART summer research fellowship. The work involved a versatile route to synthesize ionic liquids derived from carbamates (also known as urethanes) using CDI (1,1′-carbonyldiimidazole), a less hazardous alternative to isocyanates and phosgene. CDI is a very interesting molecule (see the image above) which uses a carbonyl group (C=O) to link two five-membered aromatic heterocycles. Ionic liquids are very interesting because they are liquid at room temperature (we aren't talking about melting something like table salt) and they have almost no vapor pressure (they are non-volatile). The ionic liquids prepared were also characterized in terms of density, viscosity, conductivity, and thermal properties. Future work will study the ability of these materials and their polymeric forms to absorb carbon dioxide as a possible method of carbon capture to combat combustion emissions.

Hybrid bronzes with Professor Jaffe

This past fall, our inorganic chemistry professor, Dr. Bill Feighery, spent his research sabbatical working in the laboratory of Dr. Adam Jaffe at the University of Notre Dame. Just yesterday, Jaffe came to IU South Bend to give a talk on "hybrid bronzes" for our senior seminar class. Bronze is a metal alloy of copper (Cu) and tin (Sn), but the only similarity of hybrid bronzes to the metal bronze is that both are shiny. Bronzes are basically layered metal oxides that are doped with additional atoms to alter the electrical and optical properties of the material. Similar to how the properties of nanomaterials can be fine-tuned by varying the size of their nanoparticles, the properties of these bronzes (and semiconductors, in general) can be fine-tuned by varying the concentration of doping atoms. Hybrid bronzes have even more complicated structure by introducing organic layers separating the metal oxide layers. The layers may interact through hydrogen bonding or even through direct bonding when atoms of the organic molecules replace oxygen atoms of the metal oxides. In just a few weeks our students will be giving their own presentations on current literature topics.

STEAM night for Kennedy Academy (K-5th grades)

Just this past Thursday evening our College hosted a STEAM night in Northside Hall for the youngsters of Kennedy Academy. Our department was represented by Professors Muna, Clear, and Marmorino with much to display:

• Acid-base titrations with pinkish-purple phenolphthalein
• Testing the acidity and basicity of household products with cabbage juice
• Demonstrating ocean acidicification with dry ice, water, and cabbage juice
• Green-Red-Yellow transitions for a basic glucose solution due to indigo carmine
• Density tower of sugar solutions with different food coloring
• Illustrative Periodic Table with samples of elements and simple compounds

The children had a good time and showed a lot of interest in these activities. Some other hits at the event were an origami table where kids learned to fold a frog; various physics demonstrations including a geyser; and receiving a free yoyo with an image of a "spherical cow" (from the Physics department, of course).

Can a story plot carry more weight than a data plot?

One man's garbage is another man's treasure - and one man's lie is another man's truth. How can you bring someone around to your viewpoint? Maybe you shouldn't try unless you are also willing to change your stance. It is often said that people believe what they want to believe, regardless of the facts, so that arguments focusing on data may be less fruitful (for both parties) than other approaches. That's not to say you should debate with lies, of course. Instead, a friendly discussion of a fictional situation may allow for a less confrontational conversation. The science-fiction realm of Star Trek, for example, explores real-life scientific, social, ethical, religious, medical, and environmental issues in the context of fictional worlds - often with fictional races - which makes an analysis of the issues less personal between two parties by bringing in a fictional third party.

At the Public Library of Science (PLOS), microbiologist Maggie Fink and biochemist Dr. Shahir Rizk discuss the issue of combatting disinformation in a friendly, humble manner using "story plots", much like a Star Trek episode, rather than "data plots" that scientists are trained upon. We encourage you to read their thoughtful post which also touches on their conversations with flat-Earthers.

Rust Belt Science podcast

Earlier this month Professor Rizk and adjunct instructor Fink launched a podcast called Rust Belt Science sponsored by the University of Notre Dame, where Fink works as a Science Communication Postdoctoral Scholar. Their entertaining "conversations dive into how science connects to art, culture, mythology, and all other aspects of our daily lives."  Their podcast already has four episodes:

   (1) Meet the hosts

   (2) AI weirdness with Janelle Shane

   (3) Do you have to be smart to do science?

   (4) The ecology of everything with Deb Marr

You can find the podcasts here at RSS.com or on the University of Notre Dame's YouTube channel. Please check them out if you need some audio companionship while exercising - or if you just want to learn about science from these expert science communicators.

Marmorino's interactive tutorials for quantum mechanics

For many years, Professor Marmorino has been developing and using Mathematica to create tutorial programs that allow students to explore quantum mechanical phenomena in our upper-level CHEM-C 362 Physical Chemistry of Molecules course. There students explore the two-dimensional particle in a box, particle on a ring, the Bohr correspondence principle with the harmonic oscillator, the action of linear operators on functions, the non-linear variational method for a particle in one and two wells, the linear variational method for a hydrogenic atom, the bonding and anti-bonding molecular orbitals for the hydrogen molecular ion, hybrid orbitals, and the Hückel molecular orbital method. The image below shows the four molecular orbitals of cyclobutadiene generated as just part of the Hückel molecular orbital program.

Most recently, Marmorino has developed a new program to illustrate the time dependence of stationary states, and binary linear combinations of these, for a particle in a box.  Without the time dependence of wavefunction, it is hard to appreciate the wavefunction's "waviness" that is familiar to us in our classical experience of moving ocean waves. The program also allows one to investigate the transition from one stationary state to another and how this depends on the system's transition dipole moment. This program is available to the public through the Chemical Educator, which also published Marmorino's corresponding article on how various aspects of time dependence can be illustrated and investigated using the program.

Rizk and Fink publish protein book

The Color of North is the first book publication by a faculty member of our department. Our biochemistry professor, Dr. Shahir Rizk, spearheaded this general-audience project on proteins which combined his efforts (largely on a year-long sabbatical) with those of Dr. Maggie Fink while she was working toward her Ph.D. in microbiology at the University of Notre Dame. To write a book together, these two must obviously have a lot in common, but you may be surprised that they are both alumni of IU South Bend (Rizk, B.S. Biology; Fink, B.S. Biochemistry) and are actually both teaching here (Rizk, Assistant Professor; Fink, adjunct instructor). Their book is ready for pre-order and will be available for delivery in May. The following excerpt is taken from its listing at Amazon.com.  I'm very much looking forward to reading their book.

Taking us beyond the confines of our own experiences, The Color of North traverses the kingdom of life to uncover the myriad ways that proteins shape us and all organisms on the planet. Inside every cell, a tight-knit community of millions of proteins skillfully contort into unique shapes to give fireflies their ghostly glow, enable the octopus to see predators with its skin, and make humans fall in love. Collectively, proteins orchestrate the intricate relationships within ecosystems and forge the trajectory of life. And yet, nature has exploited just a fraction of their immense potential. Shahir Rizk and Maggie Fink show how breathtaking advances in protein engineering are expanding on nature’s repertoire, introducing proteins that can detect environmental pollutants, capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and treat diseases from cancer to COVID-19.

Weaving together themes of memory, migration, and family with cutting-edge research, The Color of North unveils a molecular world in which proteins are the pulsing heart of life. Ultimately, we gain a new appreciation for our intimate connections to the world around us and a deeper understanding of ourselves.