Students take Action in the Gulf
This past Labor Day weekend, five chemistry students accompanied Professor Larsen on a tour of the coastlines of Mississippi and Louisiana to learn more about the effects of the BP oil spill. They brought back samples of the beach sand and water to study back at St. Mary's and to further their understanding of the many environmental issues facing the gulf.
Chem majors in San Francisco
From left to right: Brian, JP, Dr. Leah Eller, Rob, Nick, Danielle, Mike, Bertrand, Anita, Janice, Dr. Andy Koch, Tabitha (Now Dr. Clem), and Taylor. Emilie and Kristina couldn't make the photo.
Last Spring, 12 St. Mary's students attended the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Fransico. Eight presented their work and we all met after Tabitha Clem's ('05) talk. Tabitha was just finishing up her Ph.D. at UC Berkeley.
"Synthesis and Characterization of Benzyltributylammonium Fluoride and "DiMagno's Resin": Novel Fluorinating Reagents"
Aaron worked on the synthesis and reactivity of a novel anhydrous fluorinating reagent, benzyltributylammonium fluoride. He demonstrated the salt's stability and practical use before synthesizing a polymeric equivalent we refer to as "DiMagno's Resin", after our collaborator Stephen DiMagno at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Aaron also showed that both of these reagents have the potential to be an extremely practical source of nucleophilic fluoride under anhydrous conditions. This has far-reaching applications for the pharmaceutical industry where organofluorides are often used to influence solubility and electronic properties without changing the size and shape of a potential drug.
