February 2023, Vol. 13(2)

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Dr. Judith C. Giordan, President of the ACS to Address Local Section

By Dr. Ed Thomas

Dr. Judith C. Giordan, President of the ACS, will address KACS on February 22.

For the third consecutive year, we are fortunate to have the president of the ACS meet with our local section by ZOOM. This year our connection to the national organization will be Dr. Judith C. Giordan, who will address our section on Wednesday, February 22, from 2:45 to 4:10 p.m. EST. There will also be a room provided at Kalamazoo College where students and KACS members may enjoy the ZOOM presentation in a more social atmosphere. The live viewing will be in Room 229 of the Dow Science Building. Dr. Giordan’s talk is entitled, “ACS and YOU! The Power of Connections for Personal and Professional Growth!”

Dr. Giordan received her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. From there, she worked at Polaroid as a scientist and program leader. Then, she rose to the rank of vice president of corporate R&D at Henkel. Moving onward and upward, she became the global vice president of R&D at Pepsi-Cola. Following that position, International Flavors and Fragrances called and she became the corporate vice president, chief technology officer and global director of R&D.

Dr. Giordan has been a member of ACS since 1977 and has served on a number of boards. She has been honored for her contributions to chemistry and for her excellence in business development and management. For a more detailed biography of Dr. Giordan see C&E News, January 2, 2023.

For those interested in attending by ZOOM please contact Ed Thomas at edwardwthomas@gmail.com and he will add you to the list of ZOOM participants. For those interested in participating at the Kalamazoo College location please contact Dr. Blakely Tresca at Blakely.Tresca@kzoo.edu.

Meet the 2023 KACS Chair-Elect: Dr. Dibyendu Mondal

My name is Dr. Dibyendu Mondal and currently I am working as a Lead Scientist in the biotransformation group of Kalsec. In my role, I am focused to provide innovative and sustainable biomanufacturing solutions to realize Kalsec’s goal of nourishing the world. Prior to Kalsec, I worked in the drug discovery division of Takeda pharmaceuticals and Daiichi Sankyo pharma.

Academically, I hold a master’s degree in organic chemistry and my Ph.D. is in mechanistic enzymology. My post-doc training was in protein engineering through directed evolution. Interestingly, the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded for the discovery of this technology. During this time, I worked on automated and robotic systems for high-throughput screening. Over the years I have had the privilege to publish my findings in reputed journals of Science, Nature, and JACS.

I am honored to be elected as the 2023 Chair-Elect and 2023-2024 Chair of the Kalamazoo Section of the American Chemical Society. My journey as a chair-elect kicked off by attending the 2023 ACS Leadership Institute in Atlanta. I look forward to learning and helping the Kalamazoo ACS section to achieve the local section’s vision of creating awareness of chemistry by organizing local events and activities.

Best,

Dibyendu

Opportunities to Get Involved

Here are a couple of activities being considered for 2023 that could
benefit from your leadership and/or participation:

·A family picnic/member event – if interested contact
Dr. Edward Thomas, Dr. Dibyendu Mondal, or Ben Maxey)

·Our popular Speed-networking event in the Fall

Optimist, Pessimist, Chemist

The optimist sees the glass half full. The pessimist sees the glass half empty. The chemist sees the glass completely full, half with liquid and half with air.

Stay LinkedIn!

Remember to join—and ask chemist friends to join!—the KACS LinkedIn site and check it regularly for information of interest!

An Environmentally Important Article

We acknowledge the contribution of the following very interesting, and potentially environmentally important, article from KACS memberKenneth Abate.

Efficient Removal of Perfluorinated Chemicals from Contaminated Water Sources Using Magnetic Fluorinated Polymer Sorbents

Xiao Tan, Dr. Pradeep Dewapriya, Dr. Pritesh Prasad, Yixin Chang, Xumin Huang, Yiqing Wang, Xiaokai Gong, Dr. Timothy E. Hopkins, Dr. Changkui Fu, Prof. Kevin V. Thomas, Dr. Hui Peng, Prof. Andrew K. Whittaker, Dr. Cheng Zhang

First published: 12 October 2022

https://doi.org/10.1002/ange.202213071

Abstract

Efficient removal of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from contaminated waters is urgently needed to safeguard public and environmental health. In this work, novel magnetic fluorinated polymer sorbents were designed to allow efficient capture of PFAS and fast magnetic recovery of the sorbed material. The new sorbent has superior PFAS removal efficiency compared with the commercially available activated carbon and ion-exchange resins. The removal of the ammonium salt of hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid (GenX) reaches >99 % within 30 s, and the estimated sorption capacity was 219 mg g−1 based on the Langmuir model. Robust and efficient regeneration of the magnetic polymer sorbent was confirmed by the repeated sorption and desorption of GenX over four cycles. The sorption of multiple PFAS in two real contaminated water matrices at an environmentally relevant concentration (1 ppb) shows >95 % removal for the majority of PFAS tested in this study.

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the Australian Research Council (DP210101496) and the National Health and Medical Research Council (APP1157440 to C. Z.) for funding of this research. The Chemours Company is acknowledged for providing perfluoropolyether. Dr. Katie Macintosh from Council of the City of Gold Coast is also acknowledged for providing two ground wastewater matrices. The Australian National Fabrication Facility, Queensland Node is acknowledged for access to some items of equipment. Open Access publishing facilitated by The University of Queensland, as part of the Wiley – The University of Queensland agreement via the Council of Australian University Librarians.