New instruments for the lab

Internal grants obtained by Professors Bill Feighery and Gretchen Anderson were used in part to purchase a new liquid chromatography system (right).  Agilent Technologies installed the 1220 Infinity LC system today.  This instrument will be used for student laboratories and research. 

This semester also marked the introduction of Raman spectroscopy to the student labs.  Both Professors Grace Muna and Matt Marmorino prepared experiments for students of Instrumental Analysis (CHEM C410) and Physical Chemistry (CHEM C362) using the Advantage 200A system (left) from DeltaNu.  Raman spectroscopy uses scattering to complement information obtained from IR absorption spectroscopy.

Chemistry Olympiad

Today IU South Bend once again hosts the Chemistry Olympiad, allowing students from local high schools to compete in this event sponsored by the American Chemical Society.  Winners may continue on to the US National Chemistry Olympiad and perhaps even to the International Chemistry Olympiad (and win a medal like the one pictured).

IU South Bend Undergraduate Research Conference

Chemistry and biochemistry students presented  research today with their fellow students at our campus's annual conference.  Adam Kaylor started the morning with an oral presentation of his work under Dr. Grace Muna (with graduated student Bonnie Jaskowski) and later presented a poster.   
 
Celeste Warrell presented a poster on her summer work with Notre Dame colleagues funded by an REU award by Notre Dame University.  Calvin Streeter, Matthew Bobus, and  Mitchell Moseng (pictured left to right) teamed up to present a poster of their work in in Dr. Gretchen Anderson's biochemistry laboratory course CHEM C486.  Anderson has carefully planned this course so that students effectively do some research instead of always performing pre-generated experiments.   

Professor Grace Muna presents research to students

Just in this spring semester, Professor Grace Muna has already given talks about her research at Andrews University in Michigan and PITTCON in Georgia.  For her third talk about her work in analytical chemistry she speaks to chemistry, biochemistry, and biology students at IU South Bend next Thursday.  Come listen to her exciting research conducted with fellow undergraduate students.  The talk will be at 4:00 PM in NS 152 on April 8.  This is the second talk from our department in a series of research seminars organized by the student-run Biology-Chemistry Club.  Professor Gretchen Anderson discussed her research into arsenic earlier this semester.

Atomic force microscopy image showing electrochemically generated nickel oxide on a glassy carbon electrode. The nickel oxide catalyzes the electrochemical oxidation of SECs.