Development
Chemistry professor Linda Roberts, and biology professors Susanne Lindgren and Ruth Ballard, have a $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant will support development of a shared molecular facility, as well as individual student research projects and research experiences for middle school students.
Chemistry professor Mary McCarthy Hinz has a three-year, $60,000 grant from the Merck/AAAS Undergraduate Science Research Program to provide undergraduate research experiences that emphasize the relationship between chemistry and biology.
LONDA L. BORER
Research Students and Activities:
Katie Smith, currently working on vanadyl chemistry, fall, 1996 Seminar to be completed October 20, 2000.
Dee Dee DeMario is working on Copper Chemistry.
Sixty (60) undergraduate students have done inorganic research. Two of them, Lisa Watson and Patricia Keihl, presented their research results at an ACS symposium, Berkeley, CA, in April, 1984. Bruce DeSimas presented the mining project results at the 1988 Research Competition held in Santa Cruz and also at the regional ACS meeting in San Francisco, CA, Oct 1988. Andreas Naegele presented his research on copper enzyme models at the 1989 Research Competition held in Long Beach, CA, and Suzanne Matthews presented her research on ruthenium complexes with biimidazole at the CSU research competition, May, 1996. Several of the undergraduate names appear on publications and/or papers presented at various meetings. A separate listing of undergraduate students is attached.
Several people have worked with me during the summers. Beginning in summer of 1989, Emma Gluckman and Herschel Wade did research under a grant from the CSU Chancellor's Office. In the summer of 1990 and the following three summers, Carole Magnusson and several of her students from Sacramento High School worked with me under a grant from Research Corporation. We also continued to do activities in the high school. The summer of 1993 and 1994, Dan Schlensker and some of his students from Sacramento Lutheran High School worked on copper chemistry and natural product chemistry. Summer of 1995 Ed Barry and two students worked on vanadium chemistry and catalytic chemistry using vegetable juices. Two other high school teachers, one from Hiram Johnson and one from Elk Grove Junior High School also worked in the laboratory. Summer of 1996, Ed Barry and two high school students worked on vanadyl chemistry and the chemistry of aspirin. Spring semester, 1996, a visiting inorganic professor from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, worked in my laboratory on ruthenium chemistry. He will continue his work in Vietnam.
James Ofsink, a student from El Camino High School, worked during the summer of 1999 on Carbon-60 chemistry. He presented his work at the national ACS meeting in San Francisco, CA, April, 2000
Current Research Activities:
Two Ruthenium crystals have been characterized by x-ray analysis. NMR results have not been completed yet.
A copper dinuclear complex has been prepared and characterized. The structure has been done. The monomer of this ligand has also been prepared and will be characterized.
Epoxidation reactions catalyzed by vanadyl complexes. Vanadyl complex attached to the Merrifield's polymer is still under investigation.
Platinum complexes as antitumor agents are being investigated.
Scholarly Activities :
Special Problems Advisor Chemistry 1A Adjunct Course Reviewed "Literature Survey of Selenium Thermodynamics" for PGEEducational Equity Activities:Reviewed several General Chemistry and Physical Chemistry textbooks
Member of University Educational Equity Committee, and four of its subcommitteesCoordinator of University Mentor Program
Developer of Learning Skills 55C, an "adjunct" course for Chemistry 1A that attempts to improve survival skills of under-represented ethnic students in the context of General Chemistry. The success rate of the students in this course far exceeds that of the general population taking Chemistry 1A.
Member of School of Arts and Sciences Educational Equity Committee
Guest Lecturer for Summer Bridge: Science in Education
Guest Lecturer for ID 196: Careers in the Sciences
Guest Lecturer, College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP)
Faculty Mentor for 23 Under-represented Ethnic Students, University Peer Mentor Program, 1988-1990
ROY W. DIXON
Development of New Aerosol-based Detectors for High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)
Aerosol-based detectors function in three steps: nebulization of the HPLC effluent, evaporation of the solvent leaving aerosol particles containing analytes, and detection of the aerosol, with the last step depending on the type of aerosol-based detector. Evaporative light scattering detection (ELSD) has been employed in commercially-available detectors with light scattering used for aerosol detection. More recently, the use of condensation nucleation counters, which count particles larger than about 3 to 10 nm diameter has resulted in a more sensitive detection method known as condensation nucleation light scattering detection (CNLSD). Aerosol-based detection methods are considered to be "universal".
We have been investigating the construction of sensitive and potentially economical HPLC detectors using aerosol charging as the mechanism for detecting the aerosol. The name aerosol charge detection (ACD) has been given to the first method we have developed. The first ACD instrument was built using home-built and commercial nebulizers, a spray chamber, heated tubing and an Electrical Aerosol size Analyzer (EAA) for aerosol detection. For a picture of the detector click here (the detector is is to the left of me). In the flow injection analysis (FIA) mode (i.e. without a chromatography column) and using water as the solvent, detection limits around 10 ppb have been achieved with linear response is observed from 0.1 to around 10 to 100 ppm (depending on the nebulizer used). When using typical HPLC solvents, the sensitivity is limited somewhat by non-volatile impurities present in solvents (even HPLC grade solvents). It is possible to improve the signal to noise under these circumstances by removing small particles in the EAA before detection. Detection limits of about 20 ppb (similar to CNLSD and more sensitive than ELSD) and good reponse linearity have been observed for weakly retained compounds separated using reverse-phase liquid chromatography. This detection method has been documented in the Dixon and Peterson paper in the publications section of my homepage. To see an example chromatogram set (using both AC detection and UV detection) showing the separation and detection of 5 ppm ammonium sulfate, uracil, sulfanilamide, nicotinamide, and adenosine, click here .
Current work is focused on creation of related detectors utilizing other mechanism of aerosol charging to be constructed from scratch (not using the EAA) and involving Bill DeGraffenreid (CSUS Physics Department). Work also has been undertaken to use ACD for practical applications. The main emphasis has been on developing methods to use HPLC-ACD for analysis of dicarboxylic acids and carbohydrates. Some of this work is described below. We also are interested in ACD with FIA and simple separations to segregate non-volatile mass in samples into different classes.
Supervising the following students and their projects:
Current Students
| Name | Project | Type | Graduation Date |
| Dinesh Chand | Method development for analysis of PBDEs in fish | M.S., Chemistry | 12/04 |
| Jennifer Cruz | Measurement of smoke tracers in aerosol samples from California's Central Valley |
M.S., Chemistry | 5/05 |
| Andro Rios | Development of methods for analysis of polymeric carbohydrates | B.S., Chemistry | 12/05 |
| Edgar Vidrio |
Kinetics of the acid-catalyzed hydrolysis of levoglucosan |
B.A., Chemistry (Forensic Chem.) | 5/05 |
Past Students
| Name | Project(s) | Type | Graduation Date |
| Gregor Baltzell | HPLC method development for analysis of carbohydrates and dicarboxylic acids and Chemical instrumentation electronics lab |
B.S., Chemistry | 5/04 |
| Jessica Dean | Chemical instrumentation electronics lab | B.S., Chemistry | 5/03 |
| John Harris | Methodology for Remediation of Lead Contaminated Soils | Open University | N.A. |
| Tiffany Hester | Testing and Use of Methods Used to Determine Concentrations of Potassium in Aerosol Samples from Biomass Combustion |
B.A., Chemistry (Forensic Chem.) |
12/02 |
| Matt Jauregui | Development of Methods to Segregate Atmospheric Aerosol Mass using Solid Phase Extraction |
B.S., Chemistry | 5/03 |
| Allan Morrison | ACD Instrument Development | M.S., Chemistry | 5/05 |
| Mohammad Naeem | Chemical instrumentation electronics lab | M.S., Electrical Engineering |
|
| Kelley Paxton | FIA -ACD development work | B.S., Chemistry | 12/02 |
| Cuom Pham | ACD Instrument Development | B.S., Chemistry | 12/00 |
| Jonathon Pollack | Development of Flow Injection Analysis Methods for Determination of Mass Concentrations in Atmospheric Aerosols | B.S., Chemistry | 5/03 |
| Kizzy Whitfield | An initial study of the kinetics of acid-catalyzed hydrolysis of levoglucosan | B.S., Chemistry | 5/03 |
| Roger Wong |
Testing of ACD response and development of new related detectors |
B.A., Chemistry (Biochem.) |
5/04 |
CYNTHIA JEAN KELLEN YUEN
2000 Supervised six undergraduate students in synthetic organic chemistry projects funded by Aerojet Fine Chemicals.
