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Vol. 20, No. 2 Orlando Section Newsletter June 2016
Happy summer everyone! It is a pleasure for me to report that our Section was involved in a variety of activities over the past four months. These activities include the Chemistry Olympiad, the newly instituted Chemistry Conclave, judging at science fairs such as the 61st State Science and Engineering Fair of Florida, our regular Earth Day activities, an open house at Ek Laboratories in Longwood, FL, and participation in Council and Committee meetings at the Spring ACS Meeting in San Diego. While the Executive Committee provided some organizational and financial support, the majority of the work was performed by our active and enthusiastic volunteers. Please join me in thanking these volunteers, which include the ACS student affiliates at UCF and Stetson University, Mary Roslonowski, Steve Kuebler, Harry Price, Richard Blair and Darlene Slattery. Summaries of these activities are presented in this newsletter, and longer versions of the reports and additional information are posted on our website http://orlando.sites.acs.org/. We are currently in the process of lining up seminar speakers for our Section meetings. We would appreciate some input from you with regard to speakers and topics. Furthermore, we also invite you to submit seminar announcements and similar interesting information to the Executive Committee, so that they can be posted on our website (http://orlando.sites.acs.org/). In addition, suggestions of activities that our Section should support or be engaged in are very welcome. In the end, this is a professional organization of chemists run by members for the benefit of members. Rudi Wehmschulte 2016 Chair – ACS Orlando Section Tel: 321-674-7659 Email: [email protected]
Greetings from the Section Chair
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Dr. Stephen M. Kuebler Chemistry Department, University of Central Florida
The American Chemical Society (ACS) student chapters at the University of Central Florida (UCF), Rollins College, Stetson University, and the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) hosted the first-annual Florida Chemistry Conclave at the UCF main campus on Saturday April 2, 2016.
ACS Florida Chemistry Conclave 2016.
The Conclave is a professional-development workshop that brought 75 chemistry undergraduates together from across Florida for a day filled with research, networking, volunteering, and fun.
The Conclave was co-sponsored by the Orlando Section of ACS, Stetson University, and UCF's Department of Chemistry, College of Sciences, Graduate College, College of Engineering, and CREOL, The College of Optics and Photonics. The Conclave was also supported by an "Inter-Chapter Relations Grant" awarded by the national ACS.
(Top-left) Conclave attendees compete in a Family-Feud-style chemistry competition. (Top-right) Attendees enjoying the Chemistry Family Feud.
First Annual ACS Florida Chemistry Conclave
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The workshop included free lunch and refreshments, student-research presentations, networking with professional chemists, information about graduate studies in chemistry, a Family-Feud style chemistry competition, and a fun paper-recycling outreach event. A closing address on professional development was delivered by Dr. Bob Rolle, a member of the Orlando Section of ACS (OS-ACS) with over 30 years of experience in industry.
The first Conclave was attended by students from Florida State University, Florida Southern College, the University of Florida, Stetson University, Rollins College, Eastern Florida State College, Lake Sumter State College, FIT, and UCF.
The event was organized by student-leaders Lauren Gandy (UCF), Brian Letang (UCF), Jennifer Lear (UCF), Alice Ma (Stetson), and Jaime Fields (Stetson) and by OS-ACS members Dr. Stephen M. Kuebler (UCF), Dr. Harry Price (Stetson), Dr. Rudi Wehmschulte (FIT), Dr. Yi Liao (FIT), and Dr. James Patrone (Rollins).
(Bottom-left) Student-attendees conversing during lunch with Distinguished Guest Speaker and OS-ACS member Dr. Bob Rolle. (Bottom-right) Student-attendees exchange ideas and learn about professional-development opportunities at the Networking Session.
If you would like to become involved or help support next year's Conclave, please contact Dr. Stephen Kuebler at [email protected].
Dr. Harry L. Price Chemistry Department, Stetson University
The ACS-Orlando section held what has become its annual Earth Day outreach event, at Lake Eola on April 23, 2016. This event coincides with the American Chemical Society’s “Chemists Celebrate Earth Day”. This year the theme was “The Great Indoors-Your Home’s Ecosystem”. Demonstrations focused on the compounds used in “green” cleaning/air freshening products. Models of terpenes and other compounds found in essential oils often used for scents and cleaning/disinfection were constructed using gumballs and toothpicks. Other demonstrations illustrated the production of electricity using a
2016 Earth Day Celebration
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thermoelectric generator, the action of bleach as an oxidizing agent as observed by the luminol reaction, and the effect of detergent on a liquid’s surface tension.
A hearty thanks goes out to the UCF Chemistry Department for their ongoing collaboration. A special thanks is also extended to Dr. Casey Schwarz and Rashi Sarma from Dr. Kuebler’s lab, and all the student volunteers from UCF and Stetson for spending their day serving as ambassadors!! It was nice to visit with Drs. Rudi Wehmschulte and Steve Frazier. Thank you for coming out and spending some of your day with us.
Wonderful volunteers!!! From Left to right, Geraldine Versfeld (UCF), Casey Schwarz (UCF), Harry Price (center), Adam Cooper (Stetson), Vanna Blasczak (Stetson), and Kayla Chew (UCF).
Rashi Sharma (UCF) holding a model of α-pinene, talking to a curious young visitor about the roles molecular shape and chirality have on our perception of smell and the properties of compounds found in essential oils.
Having some fun showing a young Mutant Ninja Turtle how to make really cool colorful designs on the surface of milk using food coloring and a drop of detergent.
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Dr. Darlene Slattery Councilor/Section Historian
The 251st National Meeting of the American Chemical Society was held in San Diego, California March 11 – 13, 2016, and attended by 16,327 registered individuals.
The Council meeting occurred on March 16. During the opening portion of the Council, Sections were recognized for years of service to the Society, with the Orlando Section being recognized for 25 years.
A few of the more pertinent items from the meeting are below. A full report can be found on our website (http://orlando.sites.acs.org).
Election Results
By electronic ballot, the Council selected Peter K. Dorhout and Thomas R. Gilbert as candidates for 2017 President-Elect. These two candidates will appear on the membership’s ballots in the fall. Please remember to vote.
2017 Member Dues
The Council voted to set the member dues for 2016 at the fully escalated rate of $166. This rate is established pursuant to an inflation-adjustment formula in the ACS Constitution and Bylaws. While the vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the motion, it should be noted that each Spring, the number of nays seems to be increasing.
Membership
As of December 31, the ACS membership was nearly 157,000, which is 0.96% less than on the same date in 2014. The number of new members who joined in 2015 is 25,000. The Society’s overall retention rate is 84%. The committee also reported that the number of international members has increased to 26,022. That number is 965 higher than in December of 2014. The international growth rate is 3.85%.
Early Member Registration Fee
In compliance with the National Meeting Long Range Financial Plan and the recommendations of the 2015 Task Force on Implementing National Meeting Financial Targets, the Committee on Meetings and Expositions has recommended that the Early Member Registration Fee for the 2017 national meetings be $440. The Board will vote on this recommendation later this year.
Councilor’s Report – ACS National Meeting
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Dr. Mary Roslonowski Chemistry Olympiad Chair
The ACS-Orlando Section again sponsored the US National Chemistry Olympiad in 2016. Each year, the Orlando section invites high school chemistry faculty to nominate high-performing chemistry students to participate in the Chemistry Olympiad. Letters are sent to chemistry faculty in early January. This year, 45 students in seven high schools participated in Round 2 of testing in the month of February. High schools that participated included Edgewood Junior/Senior in Merritt Island, Hagerty High School in Oviedo, Seminole High School in Sanford, Lake Highland Prep in Orlando, Stanford Online High School, Lake Mary High School in Lake Mary, and Canterbury High School in Fort Myers.
On Saturday, April 23, 2016, seven high-performing chemistry students were invited for Round 3 of testing at the University of Central Florida Engineering Pavillion. Students included Peter Toma of Stanford Online High School, Samuel Li of Seminole High School, Julia Gallagher and Rithvik Seela of Lake Highland Prep, Justin Rauchwarg of Lake Mary High School, and Jay Chandar and Oliver Mansell of Canterbury High School. Testing was an all-day affair and our thanks go to Dr. Lei Zhai, Chen Shen, Xiaoyan Lu, and Melissa Aiello for proctoring the lab practical and paper portions of the exam. The ACS-Orlando Section sponsored some of the chemicals for the lab practical and food for the chemistry exam takers.
Results of Round 3 showed our Orlando section students doing well in the areas of stoichiometry and solutions as well as oxidation/reduction. Unfortunately, none of our Orlando section students were selected to go onto round four. Round 3 selectees are the finalists for the national competition which was held in Washington, DC and winners of Round IV will go to the country of Georgia to test and compete in the international competition in July.
If you know of a chemistry faculty member at a high school who has not received the participation invitation this past year, please let Mary Roslonowski know by emailing [email protected]. We would like the number of test-takers to be even larger in 2017.
2016 National Chemistry Olympiad
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The 61st Annual State Science and Engineering Fair was held in late March in Lakeland. The Orlando Section again organized the presentation of the Avogadro Award, which was established in 2001, with the support of the ACS Sections throughout Florida. It is presented each year for a Senior Chemistry project and the winner receives $602.23. This year’s winner was Saumya Sao from Trinity Prep in Orlando. Saumya’s project, “Plasmon driven p-nitrophenol Reduction with Anisotrophic Au Nanoparticles for the Efficient Production of Paracetamol”, was selected by the category judges for Senior Chemistry. These judges represented companies and educational institutions from throughout Florida. Saumya’s thank you note to the Section is shown below.
2016 Avogadro Award
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Report on ACS event at Ek Laboratories in Longwood, FL, Sunday April 10.
by Richard G. Blair, Director
In preparation for the event we had requested participants to RSVP and 45 members responded. We
got an early start at Ek Laboratories with preparation for visitors and setting up refreshments and
seating. Participants started arriving on time and we had 31 people show up for the event.
We started with a tour of Ek Laboratories, which was conducted in three parts:
Dr. Richard Blair gave an overview of the plant’s products and mission statement (left), Dr. Peter Cohen,
the director of analytics, gave a tour of our wet lab space (middle), and Dr. Zhilin Xie, the director of
engineering, gave a tour of the pilot operations (right).
ACS funds were used to partially cover the cost of chair rental and refreshments consisting of vegetable
and fruit trays (above left). Ek Laboratories covered the remainder. After the tour Dr. Sean Christiansen
of Garmor, Inc. gave a presentation on the work going on at their facility (above center). Garmor Inc.
produces large volumes of few-layer graphene at a competitive cost. Dr. Christiansen’s talk was
immediately followed by Kapono Curry who spoke about the I-corp program at UCF (above right). This
program is open to anyone in the section area and provides training and seed funding for
commercializing ideas.
After the formal talks we walked to Hourglass Brewery for some food as well as a tour of the brewing area. The brew master and owner were both present for the tour (left).
ACS Event at Ek Laboratories
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Section website: http://orlando.sites.acs.org/
Chair Rudi Wehmschulte Tel: 321-674-7659
Email: [email protected]
Treasurer Stephen Frazier Tel : 407-322-1678 Email: [email protected]
Alternate Councilor Laura B. Sessions Tel: 407-582-7138 Email: [email protected]
Chair-Elect Luke B. Roberson Tel: 321-543-2333 Email: [email protected]
Secretary Helein Hitchcock Email: [email protected]
Outreach Chair Harry Price Tel: 386-822-8180 Email: [email protected]
Immediate Past Chair Richard Blair Tel: 407-971-9590 Email: [email protected]
Councilor Section Historian Darlene Slattery Tel: 321-632-2535 Email: [email protected]
Public Relations Chair Newsletter Editor Ramee Indralingam Tel: 386-822-8186 Email: [email protected]
Awards Chair Laura B. Sessions Tel: 407-582-7138 Email: [email protected]
Chemistry Olympiad Chair Mary Roslonowski Tel: 321-243-6198 Email: [email protected]
Nominations and Elections Chair Luke B. Roberson Tel: 321-543-2333 Email: [email protected]
Contact Information for the Leadership Team
