Research chemist

The attraction for research chemists lies, of course, not in further perfections of the machine — let this be done systematically by the manufacturers — but in intelligent modifications of the target molecules. Examples are given in section 5.1. 

To apply inherent safety appropriately, research chemists must make an in-depth investigation into the process chemistry and into the entire process that may develop based on that chemistry. An adequate investigation necessitates input from a diverse team of people, including research chemists and business, engineering, safety, environmental personnel. They must consider the impact that the use of a particular process chemistry will have on a wide range of populations. These include the ultimate customer of the product, process operating personnel, the general public, and potentially impacted plant and animal populations. To chose the "inherently safest chemistry, the team needs to take into account ... 

Research chemists have many opportunities to incorporate inherent safety in the choice of chemical synthesis route, including ... 

The wide array of choices available to research chemists necessitates a diligent search for hazards to select the inherently safest chemistry. One of the means to search for hazards is to conduct a literature search, looking in particular for reports of incidents occurring in processes using the same or similar process chemistry being considered. 

Table 4.1 is a representative list of the types of hazards and hazardous events that research chemists are attempting to address in searching for the best chemistry. Some key factors to consider relative to process hazards include ... 

Research chemists cannot do these searches independently. There are a number of tools designed to identify and evaluate hazards. Several of these "identification tools are described below. 

Certain molecular groupings are likely to introduce hazards into a process. The research chemist should identify groupings and molecular structures that may introduce these hazards. A search of the open literature will assist in identifying which types of compounds are likely to create potential hazards. Table 4.2 presents molecular structures and compound groupings associated with known hazards. The groupings in the table were developed from CCPS (1995d, Table 2.5), and Medard (1989). The table is not all-inclusive. 

The use of any of the above techniques demands knowledge, experience, and flexibility. No prescriptive set of questions or key words or list is sufficient to cover all processes, hazards, and all impacted populations. As a research chemist reviews a chemistry and its potential application, there are advantages to maintaining an open mind when applying the various techniques designed to open up avenues of thought. The reader is referred to Chapter 7 for additional information and direction on the choice of process hazard review techniques. 

Experimental research chemists with little or no experience with computational chemistry may use this work as an introduction to electronic structure calculations. They will discover how electronic structure theory can be used as an adjunct to their experimental research to provide new insights into chemical problems. 

The aim of the series is to present the latest fundamental material for research chemists, lecturers and students across the breadth of the subject, reaching into the various applications of theoretical techniques and modelling. The series concentrates on teaching the fundamentals of chemical structure, symmetry, bonding, reactivity, reaction mechanism, solid-state chemistry and applications in molecular modelling. It will emphasize the transfer of theoretical ideas and results to practical situations so as to demonstrate the role of theory in the solution of chemical problems in the laboratory and in industry. 

Phenyl-ethyl alcohol, or benzyl carbinol, has been known for many years, but its powerful rose odour has been entirely overlooked, its discovery having been made by an ordinary research chemist and not a perfumery expert. Its preparation was described in the Berichte (9, 373) in 1876, but the product there noted was evidently impure, as its boiling-point is recorded as 212°. Commercial specimens vary greatly in both their odour and their keeping properties, some samples deteriorating in odour very rapidly. It is, therefore, very important to -obtain it in a state of the highest purity. It has the following characters —... 

Untersuchungs-arbeit, /. research work, -chemiker, m. research chemist, -labora-torium, n. research laboratory, -material, n. material for investigation or under investigation. -methode, /. investigational method, research method, -mittel, n. means of research or examination indicator, -raum, m. laboratory, -richtung, /. line or direction of investigation. 

The second edition of this extremely successful guidebook for planning organic syntheses is addressed to advanced undergraduate, graduate and research chemists. Retrosynthetic analysis and the synthon approach are presented. This new, extensively revised and enlarged edition takes account of recent developments, such as nanometer-size architecture, while emphasizing the essentials. 

From 1941 until he came to Picatinny Arsenal, Dr. Fedoroff worked in private industry in the field of explosives and propellants. He joined the staff of the Picatinny Arsenal Technical Division as a research chemist in 1946, and remained until his retirement in 1961. In addition to the Encyclopedia, his major publications include A Manual for Explosives Laboratories , 4 volumes... 

The thermodynamics treatment followed in this volume strongly reflects our backgrounds as experimental research chemists who have used chemical thermodynamics as a base from which to study phase stabilities and thermodynamic properties of nonelectrolytic mixtures and phase properties and chemical reactivities in metals, minerals, and biological systems. As much as possible, we have attempted to use actual examples in our presentation. In some instances they are not as pretty as generic examples, but real-life is often not pretty. However, understanding it and its complexities is beautiful, and thermodynamics provides a powerful probe for helping with this understanding. 

The scope of my comments will cover not the development of analytical methods but rather the process of choosing methods which give useful answers to the questions posed by the research chemist, the process engineer or the product marketing manager. The analytical chemist is always faced with the paranoia causing problem of not being able to be confident in a purity measurement until it can be shown that impurities do not interfere. 

Whether butadiene reacts with itself to give linear polymers or 8- or 12-carbon rings is a function of the catalyst and conditions used. Development of catalysts needed to give the desired products is the job of catalyst research chemists. Although catalysis is critically important in the chemical industry and much work has been done on it in research laboratories for many years, catalyst development remains more of an art than a predictable science, and the chemists involved in this type of research use methods they have learned experimentally, not from books or in classrooms. 

Through many years of experience and research, chemists have discovered patterns in the solubilities of ionic substances. Most salts are insoluble. The soluble salts are summarized in Table 4-1. and the flowchart in Figure 4-6 shows how to determine if a salt is soluble or insoluble. 

Heterogeneous reactions are complicated because the reacting species must be transferred from one phase to another before the reaction can occur. Despite much research, chemists still have limited knowledge about the mechanisms of reactions that involve heterogeneous catalysts. However, it is known that heterogeneous catalysis generally proceeds in four steps, as illustrated in Figure 15-21 for the conversion of NO into N2 and O2. ... 

R CO2 H -I- H2 O i CO2 + H3 O " In contrast, the hydrogen atom In the — OH group of an alcohol is not thought to undergo this reaction. A research chemist claims that this is incorrect, and that rapid exchange of H atoms occurs between alcoholic — OH groups and water molecules. Describe experiments that would test this claim. 

Kohei Uosaki received his B.Eng. and M.Eng. degrees from Osaka University and his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from flinders University of South Australia. He vas a Research Chemist at Mitsubishi Petrochemical Co. Ltd. from 1971 to 1978 and a Research Officer at Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, Oxford University, U.K. bet veen 1978 and 1980 before joining Hokkaido University in 1980 as Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry. He vas promoted to Associate Professor in 1981 and Professor in 1990. He is also a Principal Investigator of International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA) Satellite, National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) since 2008. His scientific interests include photoelectrochemistry of semiconductor electrodes, surface electrochemistry of single crystalline metal electrodes, electrocatalysis, modification of solid surfaces by molecular layers, and non-linear optical spectroscopy at interfaces. 

The research chemist both in academia and in industry profits from the application of metrics such as mass index (equation (5.1)), environmental factor (equation (5.2)) and cost index (equation (5.3)). Therefore, one purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate how to apply such metrics and what kind of information can be obtained from them. Some of their potential application areas are indicated in Box 5.1. 

The formation of a DPP molecule was first reported in 1974 as a minor product in low yield from the reaction of benzonitrile with ethyl bro-moacetate and zinc. A fascinating study by research chemists at Ciba Geigy into the mechanistic pathways involved in the formation of the molecules led to the development of an efficient one-pot synthetic procedure to yield DPP pigments from readily available starting materials, as illustrated in Scheme 4.10. The reaction involves the treatment of diethyl succinate (1 mol) with an aromatic cyanide (2 mol) in the presence of a strong base. The reaction proceeds through the intermediate 88, which may be isolated and used to synthesise unsymmetrical derivatives. 

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