Liquid meets liquid
Cloud of solids swirl at once
Calm filter awaits
—
Mother liquor rests
Budding crystals glint in light
Shame to disturb them
Th’ Gaussling
Xtal Haiku
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REACH for the Sky. EU Comes Down on Chemicals.
I suppose there are more than a few out there who are not familiar with REACH. Those of us in the States are a bit confused about the implications on trade and the possibility that the US EPA will attempt to adopt and promulgate the same sort of regulation. REACH has formally begun, as of June 1, 2007.
From the EU Parliament website-
Parliament adopted the compromise it negotiated with Council on the new regulation for chemicals, REACH, which will oblige producers to register all those chemical substances produced or imported above a total quantity of 1 tonne per year. Registration will affect about 30,000 substances. For more hazardous substances, producers will have to submit a substitution plan to replace them with safer alternatives.
When no alternative exists, producers will have to present a research plan aimed at finding one.
Hold the bus!! “Where no alternative exists, producers will have to present a research plan aimed at finding one.” Hopefully, there are provisions for reactive precursors or intermediates.
Reactive chemicals are useful chemicals. Synthesis chemistry is about the management of reactivity. Differential reactivity gives selectivity. Chemical manufacturing is all about selectivity.
What if you need a ton of butyllithium or triphosgene or PCl3? Hopefully there is language that provides for manufacturing non-commodity, specialty chemicals with reagents that are highly reactive.
It will be interesting to watch the unintended consequences pop out of the ground on this program. The business of testing may end up being more profitable than specialty chemical manufacturing. The bedrock of western economics is manufacturing. I hope the EU doesn’t chase away to much of its manufacturing base.
Rove Bails
Interesting overlap of events. The current issue of the Atlantic has a rather detailed and unflattering account of the “Rove Presidency”. This morning, Karl Rove announces his resignation, effective at months end. This bombshell was released by the Wall Street Journal.
Given the nature of the characters, it is hard to believe that a hundred articles like the one in The Atlantic would be enough to compell Rove to resign. My guess is that he has been calculating a departure for some time. The endgame of the Bush II presidency is probably not something he wants his name associated with. Rove is all about election “strategery”. Guiding a battered ship to permanent drydock is not his gig. Rove is a builder, not a custodian.
Rove and his sort are like skittish sea otters. You try to swim up to them and they pop below the surface only to come back up in the distance. Rove seems to breath politics. The idea that he is retired from such activity is tough to swallow. Rove is not on-air talent. He is the guy running the editing booth off-stage.
Becoming a Major Player: The Chinese Lanthanide Industry
It is interesting to note how certain countries dominate particular parts of the periodic table. South Africa has a large lock on the Platinum Group Metals (PGM’s) and crystalline carbon (diamonds). According to the South African Department of Minerals and Energy, South Africa has 62 % of the worlds supply of PGM’s. The ore bodies are located in the Bushveld complex in the northeastern section of the country.
China finds itself flush with perhaps the largest reserves of rare earths- scandium, yttrium, and the lanthanides. In my travels I see that a good bit of applied research is being done with rare earths in China, some of which is being reported in publications that I only see from a Google search. OK, I don’t have a matrix of data to prove this. But it appears that SciFinder hasn’t covered Chinese research as well as I thought. Not too surprising I suppose, given the language and distance barriers.
It is very clear that China has a thriving, though unruly, rare earth metals industry. The value of this natural resource is not lost on them. They are not content to export tech grade products so that others can squeeze the value added from refinement. They are busy trying to extract that other natural resource- the value of skillful application.
Rotovap Simulator Link
The University of Cambridge has a site with a collection of interesting and possibly even useful Applets for chemical calculations. It has a graphic feature for help in visualizing relationships. Of particular interest is the Rotovap Simulator Applet.
Ruthenium remains at US$490/toz in the EIB.
Patent Training Academy
I suppose most of us have not considered what kind of training patent examiners complete before they are cut loose on our applications. The USPTO provides a lengthy training period for beginning examiners. The program seems to be quite substantial both in terms of knowledge of the MPEP and case law.
For some interesting reading it is worth visiting the blog Patently Academic. This site operated by “Relativity”, which can only be homage to the architect of the Theory of Relativity and former Swiss patent examiner, Albert Einstein.
Expired Chemical Patents- Corey’s Oxazaborolidine
While tunneling deep through the compacted patent strata, I happened to notice that E. J. Corey’s oxazaborolidine patent appears to be expired. US Patent 4,943,635 (July 24, 1990) was assigned to the President and Fellows of Harvard College and listed Professor Elias J. Corey as inventor. This is a patent with 30 claims, of which 3 are independent claims. All of the claims are for composition of matter.
The description teaches methods of preparation of a variety of oxazaborolidines, with a special emphasis on the preferred embodiment based on proline. The use of the catalyst for asymmetric reductions is taught in the description as well.
Curiously, Corey is the only inventor on the patent. Hmmm. Knowing that he was well into his career by 1988 when the application was filed, I can only guess that he must have been very busy running multiple reactions, doing flash columns, and burning NMR spectra. \;-)
The next oxazaborolidine patent to expire will be the Merck US 5,039,802 (Aug. 13, 1991) patent. This is a process patent claiming a method for the preparation of the diarylproline system using aryl Grignard addition to a pyrrolo[1,2-c]oxazole-1,3-dione.
Incidentally, I did witness a famous professor actually doing bench chemistry. A friend and I were wandering around the chemistry building at her alma mater, (The) Ohio State University, in March of 1993 when we happened past the lab of Mel Newman.
There he was, in his 90’s, intently shaking a 2-liter separatory funnel of some dark hellbroth. He was isolating a polyaromatic hydrocarbon that he made. Newman graciously stopped to talk about his work. Having freshly graduated from a stereochemistry group and a stereochemistry post-doc, I nearly fainted when I met him. It was like meeting Elvis. Newman passed away a few weeks later.
Listening skills of the highly educated
Like everyone else, Th’ Gaussling has been sailing through life, tacking to windward usually, but occasionally a breeze astern will fill my sails and I can unfurl the spinnaker and just enjoy the ride. You know the sensation, one blunders forward smoothly in life only to run aground on an uncharted sand bar. <<< end metaphor>>>
I was met with one of those sandbars recently when my spouse pointed out an observation she had made. She observed that, in conversation,
the more highly educated a person was, the more likely they were to spend their listening time formulating their next sentence, rather than actually … listening.
Jeepers. It is hard to refute that one. After she made the remark, I knew instantly that it was not just a random comment. There I was. Exposed. Metaphysically naked.
What I, Th’ Gaussling, find is that as time goes on, I tend to give answers to questions that I wish were asked, rather than those that were actually asked. It is a poor habit, I’ll admit. But it stems from the notion that the best questions give the best answers. If someone isn’t going to ask the best questions, then by George, I’ll give answers to the better questions.
Pitstops along the bloggenbahn
In the mood for PC board snack? The folks at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories can provide a component by component guide to constructing a confectionary circuit board. Heavens, they’re tasty.
Can’t get enough of Leonard Nimoy? Well, here ya go. Knock yerself out.
Some excellent posts on the mortgage industry and Live Earth can be found on Clusterf**k Nation.
I’m convinced that all chemists are pyro’s at heart. I didn’t say anarchists or criminals, I meant Pyro in the technical sense of the word. By 10 years into their careers, most synthesis or process chemists have experienced the awesome spectacle of the Mighty Exotherm at least once. Significantly, 4th of July demonstrations never recreate celebrated lab explosions or hood fires.
A good BLEVE is a real crowd pleaser and a sight to behold. However, professional pyros choose the more cosmetic displays, ignoring the really elegant deflagrating ether ketyl still or the fabulous ozonide conflagration. I guess we chemists will have to keep those delights for our own enjoyment.
Barefoot in the Park
We saw a production of the Neil Simon play “Barefoot in the Park” at the Victorian Theatre in Denver over the weekend. Somehow I had missed this particular play in the past. The venue is a house in a residential neighborhood in north Denver. The 75 seat theatre is in the basement. The proscenium is surprisingly generous in size. The lighting and sound effects were more than sufficient in effect and in fact were skillfully applied.
It is easy to slip into the notion that Neil Simon plays are easy to pull off. The dialog and plot seem as familiar and facile as slipping on an old pair of blue jeans. Every male lead seems to be Jack Lemmon reincarnate and the irrascible neighbor is Walter Matthau. Indeed, the rythms and tenor of Neil Simon plays are remarkably similar.
But, from the technical execution point of view, the dialog does present some challenges for the actors. Simon’s humor seems to require a certain kind of a plain-yet-erudite elocution to bring the lines out properly. And this is why I keep coming back to Jack Lemmon. Lemmon’s style of acting seemed made to order for Simon. Intensity and a capacity to switch from anger to humor in an instant are necessary skills for a Simon play.
My expectations of how a Simon part should be played is really more of a limitation of my own thinking than pretentious criticism. It is a sort of reverse type casting and it should in no way be construed as negative commentary on Simons prodigous ability to write plays.
I would give the production a B+ overall.
Lamentations on Chemistry 