Dr. Rubert Pérez just published a new paper in the journal Materials Today Chemistry in which he and DePaul students synthesized a new molecule and studied how it self-assembles into nanoribbons, and how to selectively re-dissolve the nanomaterials, which has potential applications in sensors and biomedical engineering. Dr. Griffin helped out on the project with molecular calculations. Congratulations to all the authors!
Publications
Recent Faculty Publications
You’ve met our faculty as instructors of your courses, and while that is a major component of faculty work, they also do research, often with students as co-authors. Our faculty do various kinds of scholarship and communicate their results to the scientific community in many different ways. Their areas of research span many different areas of chemistry and science.
Recently, Dr. Wolbach was a co-author on two papers.
One was published in The Depositional Record. It is a a study of the sedimentary rock sequence spanning the End Permian mass extinction approximately 250 million years ago in Kashmir. She and her co-authors studied the sequence geochemically (Dr. Wolbach’s work was focused on total organic carbon abundance and isotopic composition) to better understand environmental changes which occurred at the time of the mass extinction. While it is generally believed that the End Permian extinction (the largest mass extinction in the sedimentary record) was broadly caused by the massive Siberian Traps volcanic eruptions at that time, the question of how the volcanic ash and gases specifically affected the planet to cause those extinctions is still debated. Their geochemical data suggest that atmospheric and oceanic chemistry rather than physical changes, such as provenance, climate, and sea‐level changes, drove the Permian‐Triassic environmental changes and extinctions, at least on the mid‐latitude Tethyan shelf of northern India.
Another paper was published in Scientific Reports. The results of this paper offer further support of an impact trigger for the End Pleistocene or Younger Dryas extinction event approximately 12,800 years ago. While a number of North American sites have been studied at length geochemically, this site’s sediments were particularly well preserved. Along with many other types of geochemical analyses (including Pt, Pd, spores, stable isotopes), the degree of preservation allowed Dr. Wolbach and her co-authors to do a search for and analysis of reduced forms of carbon such as soot and fullerenes (the soot represents Dr. Wolbach’s contribution). Not all North American sites contain soot, which can be oxidized in situ, but the discovery of soot along with the other geochemical data at White Pond, South Carolina, are consistent with burning ignited by a Younger Dryas impact.
Dr. Parra recently published a blog post in honor of El día del Químico (“Chemist’s Day” in Colombia, celebrated on October 31st!), entitled “Chemistry and Diversity & Inclusion at DePaul University: A Metaphor”. You can find the blog post here.
We also want to highlight that over the last year, Dr. Kharas has published several papers on the co-polymerization various monomers and styrene with many students as co-authors. These publications often come from student work performed in both his research laboratory and in course-based research projects students are involved in. He has published some of his work recently on ChemRxiv, the chemistry pre-print server. ChemRxiv allows researchers to publish their papers before peer review online and open-access. This allows for interested readers to access the information and provide feedback before a paper goes through peer review at a paper.
Synthesis and styrene copolymerization of novel halogen, alkoxy, and alkyl ring-disubstituted isopropyl 2-cyano-3-phenyl-2-propenoates. K.M. Hussain, R.M. Breault, N.J. Caporusso, C.J. Cu, K.J. Decker, T.K. Gill, E.K. Gray, C.J. Homsi, M.F. Kanji, R.M. Stone, J.L. Zepeda, S.M. Rocus, W.S. Schjerven, G.B. Kharas. ChemRxiv, October 2019. https://doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv.9932393
Synthesis and styrene copolymerization of novel ring-disubstituted isopropyl cyanoacrylates. P.M. Whelpley, S. Bajramovic, D.M. Bracamontes, G.A. Buechner, A.D. Eremin, E.J. Kowalczyk, D.D. Lender, R. McCann, W.S. Schjerven, G.B. Kharas. ChemRxiv (2019), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv.9891161.v1
Synthesis and styrene copolymerization of novel oxy ring-disubstituted isopropyl phenylcyanoacrylates. J.L. Zepeda, M.M. Betts, S. Dalloul, A.G. Gonzalez, J.K. Henning, R.X. Liu, J.J. Ludtke, J.R. Mihai, S.M. Rocus, W.S. Schjerven, and G.B. Kharas. J. Phys. Chem. Res. 1(2) 1-5 (2019).
Synthesis and styrene copolymerization of dimethyl and dimethoxy ring-substituted isopropyl cyanophenyl propenoates. R.L. Pride, A. MacDonald, E.E. McCarthy, A.N. Modi, E. Mucciolo, A.L. Schinderle, S. Trewartha, J.D. Tylka, M. Wade, J. Wat, W.S. Schjerven and G.B. Kharas. Academic J Polym Sci. 3(1): 555602 (2019).
Synthesis and styrene copolymerization of halogen ring-substituted isopropyl cyanophenyl propenoates. B.Y. Killam, T.S. Bullock, J. Carmichael, S.J. Carvalho, A.A. Dominguez, T. Faith, J. Garcia, A.D. Gould, E.E. Jacobs, K. Kochan, C.M. Rubert Pérez, S.M. Rocus, G.B. Kharas. Int. J. Chem. Stud. 3 (4) 17-21 (2019).
Synthesis and styrene copolymerization of novel oxy ring-substituted isopropyl cyanoacrylates. K.M. Hussain, S. Ahmed, A. Baldi, N.M. Benton, A.L. Nilsen, T.J. Rager, J.N. Sanderson, D. Scott, J.G. Zapien, O. Zavala, W.S. Schjerven, G.B. Kharas. Int. J. Chem. Sci. 3 (4) 8-13 (2019).
Synthesis and styrene copolymerization of novel trisubstituted ethylenes: Chlorophenoxy ring-substituted isopropyl 2-cyano-3-phenyl-2-propenoates. J.L. Zepeda, R.L. Coston, M.A. Flores, A. Graham, F. Guzzo, N.S. Manigault, E.S. Nieto, S. Piven, S.M. Rocus, W.S. Schjerven, G.B. Kharas. Int. J. Chem. Stud. 3 (3) 53-57 (2019).
Synthesis and styrene copolymerization of novel phenoxy ring-substituted isopropyl 2-cyano-3-phenyl-2-propenoates. P.M. Whelpley, E. Baftirovski, T.L. Borders, C.A. Robinson, B. Romanov, E. Valdez, and S.A. Yu, S.M. Rocus, W. Schjerven, G.B. Kharas. Int. J. Chem. Sci. 3 (4) 1-4 (2019).
Synthesis and Styrene Copolymerization of New Halogen and Methoxy Ring-Trisubstituted Propyl Cyanophenylpropenoates. Y.L. Soto, E.A. Baumgartner, F.R. Bertoletti, E.F. Gardner, B.M. Hofsteadter, A. Hrvat, A. Jackunas, A.J. Jagla, J.V. Winter, D.S. Ostrovsky, W.S. Schjerven, G.B. Kharas. Int. J. Chem., 11 (2) 60-66 (2019). https://doi.org/10.5539/ijc.v11n2p60
Synthesis and radical copolymerization of novel propyl cyanoacrylate monomers. Knight, J.D., L. Arellano, K.O. Conger, E. Crespo, J.E. Hollembeak, N.M. Jazdzewski, A.A. Pater, D.H. Possley, K.N. Rivera, C. Saucedo, J.E. Spitz, T.L. Vacala, N.W. Woo, W.S. Schjerven, G.B. Kharas, Polymer Bulletin (2019) DOI: 10.1007/s00289-019-02810-2
Synthesis and Radical Copolymerization of Novel Phenyl-Disubstituted Cyanoacrylates. C.R. Savittieri, S.M. Tinsley, A.J. Diehn, F. Hai, K.E. Humanski, E.J. Kempke, B.Y. Killam, J. Kozeny, E.W. Makhoul, M.C. Obert, A.C. Parisi, V.C. Parrilli, and G.B. Kharas. Acad. J Polym Sci. 2019; 2(5): 555597.
DOI:10.19080/AJOP.2019.02.555597
More Faculty and Student Research!
Hi All,
We wanted to update you on some more exciting publications that have come out of DePaul’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry recently:
Dr. Grice and one of his research students were recently published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (often simply called JACS, which sounds like “jacks”). JACS is the premier journal published by the American Chemical Society and is widely read and cited. In the article entitled “Synergistic Effects of Imidazolium-Functionalization on fac-Mn(CO)3 Bipyridine Catalyst Platforms for Electrocatalytic Carbon Dioxide Reduction“, Dr. Grice’s student performed Infrared Spectroelectrochemistry (IR-SEC) on compounds that Dr. Grice’s collaborators were studying for carbon dioxide reduction. This technique allows Dr. Grice and his team to observe the IR spectra of various species in situ as they are reduced or oxidized and is very valuable for providing information on reactive species that might be difficult or impossible to isolate.
Dr. Parra recently published a paper entitled “Promoting Significant Learning: A Case Study in Computational Chemistry” in the Journal Of Effective Teaching In Higher Education. His manuscript proves an pedagogical analysis and overview of his computational chemistry course that Dr. Parra has taught during his time at DePaul. In his course, students learn how to perform calculations such as DFT calculations using Gaussian and also do an independent computational research project at the end of the class. If you are curious about this class, it may be offered next year and you should contact Dr. Parra for more information.
Faculty Research Highlight – Dr. Wolbach
Dr. Wolbach is a Professor of Chemistry whose research focuses on Geochemistry. In particular, she is interested in the forms of inorganic carbon that are formed from large-scale historical events. Understanding the materials generated from these events has allowed Dr. Wolbach and her collaborators to date events such as meteor impacts and fires that led to geological changes and mass extinctions. This type of work is highly interdisciplinary and collaborative, involving groups from around the world. Dr. Wolbach processes samples collected by her colleagues at various sites to determine the type and quantity of inorganic carbon.
Her most recent paper was published in Scientific Reports and is entitled “Sedimentary record from Patagonia, southern Chile supports cosmic-impact triggering of biomass burning, climate change, and megafaunal extinctions at 12.8 ka”
In this paper, the authors look at the southern hemisphere and compare results with previous studies from the northern hemisphere. The results further support the theory that a major event happened 12800 years ago that caused megafaunal extinctions and other major climate changes. In addition, the results show that the effects were global and not just confined to the northern hemisphere.
A write-up about their paper can be found here.
Former Research Articles:
Publication of Faculty and Student Research – Dr. Parra
Dear Students, Alumni, and Friends,
Research in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry takes many different forms. We would like to highlight the recent publication by Dr. Parra, a full professor in our department.
Dr. Parra is physical chemist who specializes in computational chemistry research. This field involves using software programs that model the electronic structure of molecules. Modern computational chemistry is an extremely powerful tool that allows researchers like Dr. Parra to analyze chemical structures, molecular orbitals, reaction energies and trajectories, and many other parameters that are often difficult or impossible to obtain experimentally. Researchers in computational chemistry don’t have a traditional “lab” that you might envision from your lab experiences, but rather their laboratory is a computer (often a series of servers running advanced calculations). The insights from computational chemistry allow chemists to understand mechanisms, develop new materials, and explain chemical phenomena at a deep level.
Dr. Parra recently published a paper in the Journal Computational and Theoretical Chemistry entitled “Cyclic dimers of formamidine with its N-halogenated formamidine analogues: Structure, energetics, and proton-halonium transfer”
In this work, Dr. Parra, along with DePaul student co-authors, studied the structure, energetics, and behavior of chemicals with hydrogen-bonding and halogen-bonding. These types of interactions are critical in many areas, including drug-discovery, sensing, and supramolecular chemistry. Dr. Parra examined the effects of using different types of halogen atoms and solvent on how hydrogen and halogen bonding and transfer occur.
If you are interested in learning about computational chemistry, reach out to Dr. Parra to learn more. In addition to doing research with computational chemistry, he also teaches CHE376, an upper division elective course on computational chemistry that is offered every other year or so. Its next offering is tentatively planned for SQ2020.
Summer Research and Publications
It’s summertime, which is prime research time here in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Many faculty are working on research with students, writing manuscripts, or traveling to conferences to present their research findings.
With over a month still left in the summer, there is still time to get research work done before we focus again on teaching (although research continues during the school year too!).
Summer is also a good time for new students to join a lab so that they can focus on learning new techniques before class starts in the fall. If you are interested in joining a research lab this summer, read over the professor bios on the department page. Find a professor whose research is interesting to you and reach out to them via email to see if and when they are accepting students. A good thing to do is read recent publications from the professor’s lab to understand what kind of research they do.
Speaking of recent publications, we highlighted some in a previous post this year, but there are other recent publications we wanted to mention too:
The Catalyst 