The ARC, the CHETAH, and the Organikker March 4, 2009
Posted by gaussling in Chemical Industry, Chemistry, Chemistry Blogs, Science.5 comments
Just received a copy of CHETAH 8.0. This is a program for thermochemical and energy release evaluation and is distributed by ASTM. It will calculate enthalpy of combustion and thermochemical properties of compounds and reactions including- LFL, LOC, MIE, lower limit flame temperatures, maximum flame temperature, fundamental burning velocity, and quenching distance.
I have only had it installed for 2 days, so it’s way too early to give an appraisal. It came highly recommended by several colleagues in the process safety field. The only snag so far is a balky SMILES input module. This feature was very appealing because it allows one to copy a ChemDraw structure in SMILES format and paste it into the CHETAH GUI. The rep at ASTM gave me a link which ended up offering very cryptic instructions. Naturally, the problem is some obscure setting in Windows.
Until I get this fixed, I’ll have to enter Benson groups by hand. As it happens, I began studying guitar in my spare time, so there are all kinds of new things for my addled brain to stumble over assimilate. So when I’m not picking at strings, I’m picking at Benson groups.
Update 3/5/09: After a service pack download, the SMILES module is functioning. This is a very powerful tool.
We’ve recently caught up with the times and have been pressing Accelerating Rate Calorimetry (ARC) into service. Or more accurately, paying to have the data collected. ARC is really quite informative in that it can offer a Time to Maximum Rate (TMR) equation from which a TMR can be determined for any desired temperature. You can calculate an adiabatic delta T as well. I do not know how reliable this number is, but it certainly reminds one of the importance of considering the effect of phi factor in process scale up.
The ARC data I get includes an Antoine curve which can indicate that the accelerated rate behavior is or is not characteristic of classical liquid/vapour equilibrium behavior. What this says to the wary is that other volatiles (besides the subject material) may be generated which are not condensable. This is helpful in considering what kind of controllability is available to the process engineers.
Transformative Research in Many Ways February 11, 2009
Posted by gaussling in Chemistry, Chemistry Blogs, CounterCurrent, Education, Science, Science Education.2 comments
A friend who is presently on sabbatical has started a blog about his academic experiences in primarily undergraduate institutions (PUI). It is called Sabbatical Epistles. He mentions a key phrase that is being batted around; it is Transformative Research. According to the NSF, transformative research is-
research that has the capacity to revolutionize existing fields, create new subfields, cause paradigm shifts, support discovery, and lead to radically new technologies.
The context of the use of this phrase was that research funding at PUI’s will increasingly be put to the merit test of transformative research. As such, research into chemical synthesis at PUI’s is especially at risk of not qualifying for funding. I suppose the concern is that multistep synthesis projects for undergrads requires lots of time and skills that undergrads do not have.
Who is against transformative research? It is like motherhood and apple pie. Everybody wants to fund or be part of this kind of effort. We should always ask that research funds be put towards this end. But there is more to it than just an affirmation of meritocracy.
What I sense is that the golden age of undergraduate research programs may be fading into some darker period of scant interest. The scientific establishment continues to grow larger with each passing year. And in parallel, major research universities continue to add programs, courses, grad students, faculty, bricks and mortar, and administration based on the allocation of grant money. Big institutions depend on grant money to a large extent.
As grant money gets tighter, program requirements will increasingly filter the small fish from the big fish. Large institutions have many alumni in influential positions and in the end, the programmatic mind-set of large research institutions in conjunction with the definition of success as understood by administrators of first tier schools will win the day.
There is a pecking order to this. A kind of snobismus. And undergraduate research is not too high in the pecking order. In relation to undergraduate research in the area of synthesis, in most schools this is the only opportunity for an undergrad to get some advanced experience in the synthetic arts. If you have tried to hire a synthetic savvy BA/BS, you know they are hard to find. In my experience, most synthetikkers want to go to grad school. They want more.
Just in case anybody is listening, I want to make a pitch for continued and stronger funding of undergraduate research. As a student, it changed the course of my life in terms of growth and development. As a former mentor of undergraduate researchers as a post doc and prof, I can say that nearly all of my students are now either PhD’s or MD’s. They are all contibuting greatly to the benefit of our society in industry, teaching hospitals, and academia. I am proud of them and I’d do it over in a heartbeat. The pedagogy isn’t in dispute, I suppose. But the method of funding is.
The Chemical Entrepreneur. Part 3. December 7, 2008
Posted by gaussling in Business, Chemical Industry, Chemistry, Chemistry Blogs, CounterCurrent, Current Events, Uncategorized.10 comments
There are as many ways of starting a chemical business as there are people starting them. Entrepreneurs range in profile from smooth talking slicksters to sober, ROI-calculating engineers. Entrepreneurs can also be rather unruly folk. It is not automatically true that business founders are inherently talented at designing and running orgainzations. In fact, they are frequently poor at it. But, successful founders are usually highly focused and are able to attract resources.
A common motivation for starting a business is that the founder is possessed with existential certainty that he/she can operate a business venture better than, say, a former boss or rival. A business founder may be a free spirit, refractory to sensible advice, or may be a solemn Harvard MBA operating by the book. It is not uncommon for a founder to have had several previous failed ventures prior to a successful one.
And make no mistake, the sense of power that a founder feels in the execution of a business plan can be as addictive as heroin or crack. Once a person has had the experience of successfully gathering resources and then allocating them to leverage progress to a goal, they are forever changed. Whether or not they continue the role of managing funds or personnel, their eyes have been opened to the real meaning of power.
Power is the ability to allocate resources.
No matter what kind of chemical business one wishes to start, it is crucial to understand that it will require the accumulation of some kind of resource that you can apply to a problem. That resource can range from your technical reputation, 30 days net of commercial credit, VC monies, or a chemical processing plant. It is all a form of leverage toward the greater goal converting streams of goods and services into streams of cash.
Try to get cash flowing from sales as early as possible. Choosing a Market-Pull activity is the best way to do this.
A chemist starting up a business is able to choose several kinds of general business activities. If you want to be a consultant, you must determine the boundaries of your knowledge and then find demand for that expertise. If you are truly an expert in a field, then more likely than not you know who might buy your services.
If you choose a Technology-Push approach, try to target customers who are willing to be early adopters.
A chemist may be well situated to start an operation offering analytical services. In that case, the enterprising analyst needs to know about underserved demand out in the marketplace. You need to offer a service that prompts people to send a purchase order to you.
If your startup is a one-act pony, it is critical that the pony actually be able to jump through the flaming hoop as advertised. Try to avoid one-act pony business plans. Find Market-Pull products to pay the bills while your Technology-Push products are under development.
A chemist is in a great position to get into formulations. While this might not be strictly a “chemistry’ activity, the walking-around-knowledge chemical that a chemist might have probably well exceeds the basic chemistry knowledge of many “experts” in the formulations business. However, a chemists general knowledge may not be applicable to direct application to formulations. The level of infrastructure for doing formulations can be dramatically less stringent than chemicals manufacturing as well, requiring less startup capital. Again, to be a formulator you need to know what is in demand.
Remember-Sometimes it is dumb to be too smart about things. Be customer oriented. Be honest about strengths and weaknesses. Learn the difference between smart and cagey. Dick was a cagey businessman. Don’t be a Dick.
Fine chemicals manufacture has many success stories. Alfred Bader started his Aldrich empire making what we now call Diazald. Bader was was extremely customer service oriented and I believe this is the key to his success. He visited laboratories asked workers what they needed. If the request was reasonable, he would put the material in the catalog collection. If the chemist-entrepreneur desires to start a catalog fine chemical company to sell reagent chemicals and widgets, then I would advise making a study of that business arena.
Most advisors to entrepreneurs will say that the prospective business person is well advised to put down a written plan. This is important on many levels. The act of writing a business plan is useful to the entrepreneur in several ways. It causes the writer to focus his/her ideas and energy as well as to clarify the goal and how to track towards it. A well written business plan is critical if you need to attract funds to get the operation started. Investors and bankers need a document to study and to bring before others for analysis and buy-in. Just gotta have it.
Starting a drug company is going to be quite difficult for a few isolated chemists to do. It is a complex and insanely expensive and risky business that requires a wide diversity of players to be on board and committed. Somewhere you have to get an MD or MD/PhD, finance people, former pharma executives, regulatory affairs peoples, etc., on the board to add gravitas to your plan. A whole circus of expensive prima donnas. Sounds like a nightmare to me.
The Chemical Entrepreneur. Part 2. September 11, 2008
Posted by gaussling in Business, Chemical Industry, Chemistry, Chemistry Blogs, CounterCurrent, Science.6 comments
There are many reasons not to start a business. It’s risky. It inevitably requires many long hours sweating all of the ten thousand details. Building a company from scratch requires wildly diverse skills that are not commonly possessed by a single person. And it usually requires more resources than a typical wage earner can easily muster.
A chemical entrepreneur with an eye on manufacturing faces some unique challenges that, say, a fledgling purveyor of roasted coffee beans could avoid. Most obvious it the issue of a physical plant. Not only must the chemist or engineer have a workable chemical process, but also have a highly specialized facility in which to do the processing. This requires suitably zoned land, local review boards, environmental permits, a local work force, process equipment, a minimum of raw material inventory, and buildings to contain it all.
Then the entrepreneur must provide an infrastructure of chillers, boilers, electrical distribution, liquid nitrogen for inert gas, an analytical facility, an R&D facility, quality control, as well as administration, sales, and technical staff. There must be a steady stream of cash flow to provide a steady payroll. Taxes must be estimated and paid in advance.
There are many sobering reasons not to go forward with a chemical business plan if one is risk averse or, shall we say, comfortable. Indeed, one of the common character traits of people who are analytically-minded is the tendancy to rattle off all of the reasons why something won’t work. We’ve all experienced this in meetings. A problem arises and meetings are called. After the problem is identified, much of the remaining time is spent in a recital of the additional problems that are expected. Soon, the problem mushrooms into a phantasm with imaginary components of awesome magnitude.
We’re all good at digging up reasons why something won’t work. And chemists suffer no lack of ability here.
But this is where the true entrepreneur stands out from the herd. One mark of a successful entrepreneur is the ability to ignore, or filter out, pessimistic predictions of an outcome. There is a spark within the some people that compels them to go forward. Sometimes it is a special insight. But just as likely the entrepreneur has an inner drive- some might unflatteringly call it “narcissism”- that moves them forward because they are certain of the outcome. It is not uncommon for an entrepreneur to consider him or herself the smartest person in the room.
In Part 3 we’ll look at examples of what kinds of businesses chemical entrepreneurs have started.
Lead Couture August 23, 2008
Posted by gaussling in Bohemian, Chemistry, Chemistry Blogs, Humor, Nuclear, Safety, Whimsy.1 comment so far
In case any of my dear colleagues in the blogosphere are in the market for a lead brasserie or heavy metal codpiece, there is one supplier of goods meant to protect those delicate regions from radiation. By way of style, I’d put the design in the 19th century Amish or Mormon settler category. But, that is beside the point. This habillement de mode de plumbum [thanks BabelFish!] is meant to protect the more tender regions from ionization.
Aldrichimica Acta, Vol. 42, No. 2, 2008. July 29, 2008
Posted by gaussling in Bohemian, Business, Chemical Industry, Chemistry, Chemistry Blogs, Science, Science Education.4 comments
The latest Aldrichimica Acta is out- No. 2 of volume 41. This publication was started by a friend, teaching colleague, mentor, and former boss who spent some of his best years working for Alfred Bader. He eventually retired as a VP of something or other at Aldrich. A truly great guy. For a while, the task of catalog publishing was his job. He bought paper by the rail car. Their job was to increase the size of the collection by 15 % per year.
He also invented the coffee pot kugelrohr system that Aldrich sold for a long time. It has now morphed out of recognition. But he showed me the prototype motor assembly. It consisted of a reciprocating air motor built for automotive windshield wipers wired onto some pegboard. The air motor used either air pressure or vacuum and had a metal tube that connected the vac line from one side of the motor axially to the other. The reciprocating motor got around the need for a sealed vacuum bearing. To one side of the reciprocating tube was connected a vacuum line via flexible rubber hose, and to the other via hose and barbed connector, a series of bulb tubes and pot.
The coffee pot came from a West Bend coffee pot plant down the road in Milwaukee. Aldrich bought the reject pots and paid a guy to refit them for kugelrohr duty in his garage. It was a very successful product. When I went to grad school we had a Buchi kugelrohr for bulb-to-bulb short path distillation. But I still remember with some fondness having to sit at the bench twiddling the Aldrich kugelrohr by hand while feeding dry ice onto the receiver. Sometimes we would drip dichloromethane in the receiver and let the evaporative cooling do the trick. We’d use the air motor for lengthy distillations.
On wrecking your career July 28, 2008
Posted by gaussling in Angst, Business, Chemical Industry, Chemistry, Chemistry Blogs, CounterCurrent.6 comments
It’s the end of a rotten day and I’m fuming. There are many ways to see harm to or the obliteration of your career in the fabulous world of industry. It can be self-immolation or you can catch a bullet just by standing there. Sometimes you can be removed for reasons that are never clear- your division or your job description can be rendered obsolete by the geniuses driving the boat. Industry demands loyalty and the ability to absorb abuse through many forms of institutionalized intimidation.
Sometimes working in industry just sucks. There is no way around it nor is there a better description. The trick to weathering bad times is to find a way to reign in your temper when things get stupid. Speaking for myself- a large irritable mammal- this can be really hard to do. I am a smartass with a good vocabulary and a decent imagination- a detonable configuration and am unable to keep my mouth shut sometimes.
I had to learn this temper thing the hard way. I once beared my teeth and snapped back at a senior staff member who was behaving just horribly. He had a need for dominance and used his lengthy time in service to leverage it. Skipping to the conclusion, I ended up leaving and he stayed. Moral of the story- for long term survival, find a way to let bad characters implode through their own weaknesses. If you want to stay, then resolve to stay.
In industry it is quite important that your “deliverables” are not just visible, but also mission critical. Industry is cyclical and companies inevitably expand the head count. When times get tough, the head count is one of the first things they want to trim. While times are good, try to remain on important projects that are highly visible and valuable to management. Try to avoid being put on invisible projects.
Be judicious in how you use email. Don’t give others a stick that they can beat you over the head with. Never compose an email while you are angry. Always be fair and generous, especially to despicable characters. Even handedness in the face of conflict will always win friends and allies. Try to avoid blind copying and excessive cc’s to upper level people. Try to settle your disputes without making a comedy show of it in front of management.
You will eventually find that one of the major problems in life is the matter of control. Many kinds of conflict and ordeals derive from the need for control. Some people harbor pernicious control issues that disrupt everything around them. They are like typhoid carriers. I have yet to find a rule of thumb for such a situation. But the thing to remember is that such people could cause you to behave badly as well. , so a person has to be on guard when certain people are around. This sounds simple, but it can be quite hard to do. I am writing this very post as a way to process my own frustrations.
Organic and Inorganic Carbon?? July 19, 2008
Posted by gaussling in Astronomy and Aerospace, Chemistry, Chemistry Blogs, Cosmos, CounterCurrent, Current Events, Education, Radio Astronomy, Science, Science Education.8 comments
Thanks to a friend in Grand Rapids, I was linked to a blog hosted by the NY Times called Tierneylab.com. The writer of the post was sounding off about a pet peeve relating to the use of the term “Organic”. It seems that there is some confusion as to the use of the adjective organic in relation to certain carbon-containing substances. Tempest in a teapot, you ask? Let the chemistry community decide.
The problem begins to show itself when astronomers and planetary scientists start describing carbon containing materials found in planetary exploration as organic. Back on earth, the word organic is burdened with both common and scientific usage. So, when descriptions of organic materials found on other worlds begin to arise in discourse, the intent of the usage becomes unclear.
For instance, it could suggest to people that such discovered materials were put in place by some kind of life form. It could suggest to nondiscriminating audiences that the presence of carbon implies life, past, present, or future. Or it might well suggest to higher level audiences that biology-ready raw materials are in place.
The scientists working with the Phoenix Lander have an interesting analytical chore in front of them. Using a robotic platform on Mars, they want to distinguish the presence of organic vs inorganic carbon. What is meant by organic and inorganic is less than clear. But it seems that organic refers to something other than CO2 and carbonate.
In the relatively few journal articles I’ve seen relating to this, the authors are not always precise about the kinds of molecules they are referring to as organic. Irrespective of what is said in the articles, when this work gets to a public forum, the meaning behind the word organic becomes even less clear.
The TierneyLab post does bring up an interesting question about what is necessary for a substance to be considered organic. Do graphite, diamond, Buckyball, or soot forms of carbon qualify as organic? What about CO2, CS2, carbonates, CO, HCN, or calcium carbide? Does it make more sense to refer to organic and inorganic carbon, where inorganic carbon is defined as … well, what?
Seriously, what would it be? CO2? Carbon dioxide is incorporated into glucose by plants and this seems quite organic. Carbonate? This anion is used to balance our blood pH. Our own metabolic CO2 helps to provide carbonate. This product of metabolism should qualify as organic. CO? Well, Carbon monoxide undergoes Fischer-Tropsch reactions to produce aldehydes. This seems very organic as well. Perhaps the target is a substance with C-H bonds?
There is nothing inherently biological about the C-H bond. The Saturnian moon Titan is blanketed with a thick layer of CH4 (methane) and it seems unlikely that it is of biological origin. Indeed, hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and carbon the 4th. That hydrogen and carbon atoms could find each other to form trace methane in a proto solar system isn’t too much of a stretch.
Organic and Inorganic Carbon. How about we just leave it all as organic?
Here is what I think. It does matter if a scientist or writer is using language in an imprecise way. If writing or speech implies, for instance, that Mars is rich in life giving organic nutrients when in fact Martian organic matter is really carbonate and CO2, then I believe the language must be altered to reflect that condition. A writer should not leave an impression of past or incipient planetary fecundity when in fact the planet may be an inert ball of metal silicates dusted with a bit of carbonate when the 6 torr CO2 atmosphere kicks up a breeze.
