ChemLine                                                                 

Todd Miller        563-659-2394 (PH)                                                                         A publication of

Secretary                                                                                                        The Illinois-Iowa Section of

millertj@netins.net                                                                                  The American Chemical Society

February 2002

If you have items to be included in the next newsletter, submit the items by February 26 to the Secretary.

For the latest information about upcoming events, visit our website at http://membership.acs.org/I/ILIA/

 


February Meeting

Tuesday, February 12th, 2002

 

Location:

 

St. Ambrose University

 (See attached map)

 

Times:     5:30 – 6:30 PM

 

 

Wine and Cheese Social

     hosted by the SAU Chemistry Department

    Faculty-Staff Dining Room in Cosgrove Hall

 

6:30 – 7:30 PM

 

Dinner

Lasagna (both meat and vegetarian), Caesar salad, Italian vegetables, rolls, coffee, tea, spumoni

 

7:30 – 9:00 PM

 

Program in the Media Room LL11 (Lower Level) of O’Keefe Library

“Molecular Orbitals Made Friendly -- A No Math, No Group Theory" by Dr. John Verkade, Iowa State University

Reservations:

 

 

Member/Guest Charge:    $14     Student Charge:    $7

Deadline for Reservations: Friday, February 8 at noon.

Contact: George Bailey III, 563-333-6127 or gbailey@saunix.sau.edu.

Our next meeting is March 12 at Augustana College.

 

“Molecular Orbitals Made Friendly -- A No Math, No Group Theory”

Would you like to be able to understand the MOs of inorganic, organic, and organometallic molecules without dealing with group theory or mathematics? A very effective way to pictorially visualize all the antibonding, nonbonding, as well as bonding MOs for a molecule is to take advantage of the fact the MO symmetries reflect atomic orbital symmetries. A simple (but not simplistic) method developed at Iowa State will be presented that will enable you to sketch these MOs for organic, inorganic, and organometallic molecules, including solid state materials, polymers, and Buckeyballs! Interactive learning software for this teaching method will also be demonstrated.

 

Biographical Sketch

Dr. Verkade is a Professor of Chemistry at Iowa State University. He holds a BS with honors from the University of Illinois, a masters degree from Harvard, and Ph.D. from Illinois. Among his many honors he has been an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow and has won the Henry and Carol Mosher Award for research, teaching and the advancement of chemistry. He has been active in the Ames section and at the National level of the ACS. He has served as editor of several journals and has been the author of over 300 journal articles, 3 books and 5 patents. His research efforts are focused on phosphorous compounds, hypervalent nonmetal species and metal alkoxides and ceramic precursors. He has taught a wide variety of courses at Iowa State including freshman chemistry and inorganic chemistry for at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.

 

Message from the Chair

We had a great meeting last month. The food at Governor's Bar and Grill was excellent. We had about 25 members attend. Dr. Ellen Kabat Lensch spoke to us about the Advanced Technology for Environmental Education Center (ATEEC). The center has a wide variety of activities in environmental education going on regionally and nation-wide. Those of you interested in the environment and in environmental education may wish to visit the ATEEC web-site http://www.ateec.org/ and the environmental library http://ateel.ateec.org/.  

I have a personal interest in this month's speaker, Dr. John Verkade. Dr. Verkade (I suppose I can call him John, now that I have graduated) was a professor of mine at Iowa State. I enjoyed the Inorganic classes he taught. In those classes he was beginning his work on making MO's more accessible to those not schooled in higher math and group theory. I really think his ideas have helped me in explaining some of the complex issues of chemical bonding to my freshman and sophomore students. I am sure his talk will help us all understand a little more about chemical bonding as well.

I am excited that Dr. Ed Maslowsky of Loras College has agreed to take over the Chemistry Olympiad. It will be held this year at Loras College in Dubuque on April 13. Mark this date on your calendars. I am sure Ed would appreciate some assistance in proctoring, grading or just helping out. You may contact him at (563) 556-5422 or e-mail him at emaslows@loras.edu.

We are still looking for someone to represent us at the Quad Cities Engineering and Science Council. If you are interested, please let me know.

Rich Craddick of the Don Kiser Memorial Scholarship Committee met with the executive committee a couple weeks ago, and we talked about ways of soliciting funds for the scholarship. The committee will be looking at ways of soliciting these funds. As you will recall we awarded this scholarship for the first time last year. The committee is in the process of sending out applications for this year's scholarship.

I look forward to seeing you all at St. Ambrose on Feb 12.

John

 

Chemistry Olympiad

As noted above, the Chemistry Olympiad going to be held on Saturday, April 13, 2002 at Loras College from 8:00 AM - 12:30 PM.  Loras is located at 1450 Alta Vista, Dubuque, Iowa 52004-0178.

As in the past, we would like to have free textbooks in the areas of chemistry and physics that would be made available to participating high school teachers. Anyone able to make such contributions should contact Ed Maslowsky at emaslows@loras.edu.

 

Contact us:

Chair:  Dr. John Bonte                                 Audit Committee Chair                                        Public Relations Committee Chair

   (563) 244 – 7138                                           Mr. Richard Helms                                                  Mr. Richard Kissack

   FAX (563) 244 – 7107                                  (563) 264 – 4240                                                    (563) 242 – 4812

   jbonte@eiccd.cc.ia.us                                   FAX (563) 264 – 4216                                           rkissack@clinton.net

 

Chair Elect:  Dr. Alan Abbot                      Education/Grants and Awards                         Illinois State Capitol Day

  (309) 852-5671 ext. 253                            Committee Chair                                                    Representative 2002

  abbotta@eastadmin.bhc.edu                        Dr. Sally Rigeman                                                   Dr. Sally Rigeman

                                                                                (309) 797 – 4369

Secretary:  Dr. Todd Miller                            srigeman@netexpress.net                                  National Chemistry Week

  millertj@netins.net                                                                                                                           Coordinator 2002

  (563) 659 – 2394                                         Kiser Scholarship Committee Chair                  Dr. Alan Abbot

                                                                                Mr. Rich Craddick

Treasurer: Rich Rogers                                  (563) 264 – 4394                                                 Webmaster

   rickgpc@home.com                                       (FAX) (563) 264 – 4367                                        Dr. Tim Smith

                                                                                rich_craddick@kentfeeds.com                            (563) 288 – 6049

Counselors: Brian Mundell                                                                                                                tsmith@eiccd.com

   brian@bio-researchprod.com                  Mentoring Committee Chair

                                                                                                                                                            Dr. Lisa B. Fields

   Mel Peterson                                                    (563) 264 – 6039

   chpeterson@augustana.edu                        lmfields@muscanet.com

Please Post

 

 

 

 

Molecular Orbitals Made Friendly -- A No Math, No Group Theory

 

 

 

February 12th, 2002

7:30 – 9:00 PM

 

 

St. Amrose University

Media Room LL11 (Lower Level)

O’Keefe Library

 

 

 

Would you like to be able to understand the MOs of inorganic, organic, and organometallic molecules without dealing with group theory or mathematics? A very effective way to pictorially visualize all the antibonding, nonbonding, as well as bonding MOs for a molecule is to take advantage of the fact the MO symmetries reflect atomic orbital symmetries. A simple (but not simplistic) method developed at Iowa State will be presented that will enable you to sketch these MOs for organic, inorganic, and organometallic molecules, including solid state materials, polymers, and Buckeyballs! Interactive learning software for this teaching method will also be demonstrated.

 

 

Contact George Bailey III at 563-333-6127 or gbailey@saunix.sau.edu

 

 

Please Post