Chemistry and Biochemistry

It can reasonably be argued that of all of the industries that made the modern world possible, iron and steel making holds a pivotal place. Without ferrous metals technology, much of the modem world simply would not exist. As the American iron industry grew from the isolated iron plantations of the colonial era to the complex steel mills of today, the science of assaying played a critical role. The assayer gave the iron maker valuable guidance in the quest for ever improving quality and by 1900 had laid down a theoretical foundation for the triumphs of steel in our own century. Yet little is known about the assayer and how his abilities were used by industry. Much has been written about the ironmaster and the furnace workers. Docents in period dress host historic ironmaking sites and interpret the lives of housewives, miners, molders, clerks, teamsters, and hostelers. The assayer goes unrecognized. Part of the reason for this is that the assayer did not become an integral part of th...

Since 1972, most of bay and the islands inside it, have been administered by the Jamaica Bay Unit of the Gateway National Recreation Area, National Park Service. The bay contains many diverse habitats, including coastal shoals, mudflats, sand bars, open water (littoral zone), intertidal zones (low and high marshes), and upland areas. Jamaica Bay provides recreation for New York City as well as prime habitat for migratory birds. For this reason the loss of marsh islands in the center of Jamaica Bay has been of great concern to the Park Service and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Comparisons with historical aerial photographs have shown several island marshes reduced by 12% since 1959. Low marsh vegetation loss on the islands in Jamaica bay has averaged 38% since 1974 and vegetation the loss on the smaller islands has been as high as 78%. This research report was prepared in This work was undertaken in response to a call from the National Park Service for sediment studies...

Groundwater samples collected from 25 shallow boreholes in Ughelli, western Niger Delta, Nigeria, have been analyzed to determine major ion chemistry, and to compare the chemistry with that of the eastern Niger Delta. Preliminary results showed that major ions such as Ca2+, Mg2+, Na+, and Cl- occurred in relatively significant quantities in all the samples. The concentrations of these ions are below the standards for drinking water as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). As with the landward side of the eastern Niger Delta, the concentration of Ca2+ was found to be higher than Mg2+ in all the samples. Chloride occurs in concentrations less than 14 ppm in 50 percent of the samples. Chloride concentration is higher in the remaining 50 percent of the samples, becoming greater than 40 ppm, which may indicate minor saltwater encroachment. However, only 20 percent of the samples have Na/Cl ratios that are below the values for seawater and freshwater. The results suggest tha...

S tudents in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department at Montclair state University have several opportunities to learn about laboratory robotics. A unit on robotics is included in the senior level instrumental analysis class at the end of the spring semester. Students are also able to receive individual instruction on the robotic systems and high-school students have developed automated procedures during summer enrichment programs. An important component of the program is the competition setup between the men and women students of the instrumental analysis class. This keeps student attention focused on the exercises without the need to assign homework. This short article describes the equipment used by the department, provides an overview of how it is used, and contains informal observations made by the author about the student experience. (JALA 2009;14:90-93)

The direct spectrophotometric analysis of aqueous nitrates is a simple analytical procedure but prone to interferences. A twelve-month study of the Preakness Brook in Wayne Township, New Jersey demonstrated that two wavelength, three wavelength, and second derivative calculation methods provide very different results from the same ultraviolet absorption spectrum. On average, the two wavelength and second derivative methods yielded the same concentration at each sample point over the entire study period. These methods provided concentration results closest to those obtained by ion chromatography and significantly lower than the three wavelength computation method. The degree of variation between the different computation methods was not consistent as it rose with increasing absorbances at wavelengths associated with interfering compounds. This variation was especially pronounced between May and August.

New York City's sanitary reforms of the 1890s were a significant because for the first time every street was cleaned and all neighborhoods had regular trash collection. Critical to the success of the reforms was a system of waste disposal. Since the 1850s, companies on Brooklyn's Barren Island, in the western portion of Jamaica Bay, converted offal and animal carcasses into grease and fertilizer. This system was expanded to accommodate the waste flows created by the citywide sanitation reforms. The industry was established when Barren Island was unpopulated and isolated but the eastward growth of the city made the waste industry increasingly unwelcome even as the city depended on it for financing trash collection. These industries illustrate the importance of having an effective waste management technology, a market for recovered materials, and an isolated location for processing operations.

S tudents in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department at Montclair state University have several opportunities to learn about laboratory robotics. A unit on robotics is included in the senior level instrumental analysis class at the end of the spring semester. Students are also able to receive individual instruction on the robotic systems and high-school students have developed automated procedures during summer enrichment programs. An important component of the program is the competition setup between the men and women students of the instrumental analysis class. This keeps student attention focused on the exercises without the need to assign homework. This short article describes the equipment used by the department, provides an overview of how it is used, and contains informal observations made by the author about the student experience. (JALA 2009;14:90-93)

Pyrolysis-Gas Chromatography / Mass Spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) can be used to study the organic matter in sedimentary environments. An urban sediment is not simply defined by proximity to a city. Because cities have anthropogenic contamination, one important urban sediment characteristic is ongoing recontamination. Another is legacy contamination from industrial activity and a third is the alteration of natural bio-geochemical systems. Two case studies are presented. The surface sediments of the Gateway National Recreation Area were sampled during the summer of 2007. The ratio of two pyrolysis products, Vinylguiacol, from terrestrial plant lignins, and Indole, from proteins,

If all you know about the geology of South Jersey is that it is sandy, has shallow groundwater, and overlies something called the Kirkwood-Cohansey Aquifer, then this is the book for you. Claude Epstein has done a remarkable job explaining the natural forces that created the

Archaeochemical soil analysis has long been recognized as a valuable site interpretation tool. Chemical artifacts of organic decay and human practices can identify activity areas, delineate soil features or even mark entire sites.Ideally, a chemical artifact should be no different than any other. It should reveal through its presence, abundance and location, information about past cultures.This paper reviews the major

The quantitative simulation of gross primary production (GPP) at various spatial and temporal scales has been a major challenge in quantifying the global carbon cycle. We developed a light use efficiency (LUE) daily GPP model from eddy covariance (EC) measurements. The model, called EC-LUE, is driven by only four variables: normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), air temperature, and the Bowen ratio of sensible to latent heat flux (used to calculate www.elsevier.com/locate/agrformet moisture stress). The EC-LUE model relies on two assumptions: First, that the fraction of absorbed PAR (fPAR) is a linear function of NDVI; Second, that the realized light use efficiency, calculated from a biome-independent invariant potential LUE, is controlled by air temperature or soil moisture, whichever is most limiting. The EC-LUE model was calibrated and validated using 24,349 daily GPP estimates derived from 28 eddy covariance flux towers from the AmeriFlux and EuroFlux networks, covering a variety of forests, grasslands and savannas. The model explained 85% and 77% of the observed variations of daily GPP for all the calibration and validation sites, respectively. A comparison with GPP calculated from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) indicated that the EC-LUE model predicted GPP that better matched tower data across these sites. The realized LUE was predominantly controlled by moisture conditions throughout the growing season, and controlled by temperature only at the beginning and end of the growing season. The EC-LUE model is an alternative approach that makes it possible to map daily GPP over large areas because (1) the potential LUE is invariant across various land cover types and (2) all driving forces of the model can be derived from remote sensing data or existing climate observation networks. #

A method was developed to chemically functionalize graphene sheets by silylation. The graphene oxide sheets were silanized with N-(trimethoxysilylpropyl) ethylenediamine triacetic acid. Then the silanized graphene oxide sheets were reduced to produce water-soluble graphene derivatives (EDTA–graphenes). Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were employed to characterize the structures and properties of the EDTA–graphenes and to

A method was developed to chemically functionalize graphene sheets by silylation. The graphene oxide sheets were silanized with N-(trimethoxysilylpropyl) ethylenediamine triacetic acid. Then the silanized graphene oxide sheets were reduced to produce water-soluble graphene derivatives (EDTA-graphenes). Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were employed to characterize the structures and properties of the EDTA-graphenes and to monitor changes in the surface morphology and chemical and physical characteristics of graphene at different stages of the silylation reaction. The EDTA-graphenes showed improved dispersion in water and an EDTA-graphene film with a well-layered structure and high conductivity was fabricated.