fall 2002

Perspectives of Chemistryat Hanford Series

October 15, 2002

5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

CREHST Museum

R I C H L A N D S E C T I O N

American ChemicalSociety

The third in a four partseries on the pioneering chem-istry done at Hanford over thepast 50 years will be held on Oc-tober 15, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm,at the CREHST Museum locatedat 95 Lee Blvd, Richland. Thefocus of this poster session willbe: “Chemistry in the VadoseZone.” Topics will include the 200Area Plateau Vadose Zone in-vestigations, bismuth phosphateprocess simulation studies totrack Tc-99, and the mechanismof Cs and U binding to HanfordSoils.

A wine and cheese buffet will

be provided for attendees. Grouptours through the museum will beavailable. There is no charge forthis activity.

The first two sessions in thisseries, which centered on pluto-nium separation and fission prod-uct recovery, were very well at-tended and informative. If youmissed them, or would just likethe information in hard copy, oursection Chair, Milt Campbell, hascompiled the poster sessions intoa booklet, which is available atcost, $25. If interested in a copy,please contact Milt; (509) 946-1985 or campsoup@gte.net.

September Meeting

Speaker:

Dr. R. Bruce King,University of Georgia

Topic:

“An Oxygen-17 NMRStudy of Uranyl

Hydrolysis and Gelation”

Date:

September 24, 2002

Time/Place:

7:30 p.m.Battelle Auditorium, Richland

Abstract: The unusually sharp 17O resonance of aqueous

uranyl ion (e.g., ∆W1/2

= 6 Hz in aqueous UO2(NO

3)

2 )

allows the use of 17O NMR for observing hydrolysis

and gelation processes in uranyl solutions. Thus distinct

uranyl 17O resonances are observed for monomeric

UO2

2+, dimeric (UO2)

2(µ

2-OH)

2

2+, and trimeric

(UO2)

3(µ

3-O)(µ

2-OH)3+ in hydrolyzed solutions. The

assignment of the 17O NMR resonance to the dimer is

confirmed by X-ray structure determination on

[Me4N]

2[(UO

2)

2(OH)

2(NO

3)

4] obtained from the

hydrolysis of uranyl nitrate with [Me4N]OH. Hydrolysis of uranyl chloride with

hexamethylenetetramine (HMTA) in HMTA/UO2

2+ ratios above 0.6 leads selectively

to (UO2)

3(µ

3-O) trimer formation. Gelation of such solutions in the presence of urea

leads to no essential changes in the 17O NMR spectrum. Sharp uranyl 17O resonances

are also observed in a strongly alkaline gel obtained from UO2(NO

3)

2 in 1 M

[Me4N]OH. This 17O NMR study thus suggests two different pathways for uranyl

gelation, one involving condensation of (UO2)

3(µ

3-O) trimers and the other involving

condensation of UO2(OH)

n2-n units.

continued on page 2

John Swanson (second from left) discusseshis poster on fuel element cladding removalwith several local section members.

from the 224th National ACS Meeting in Boston by Richard A. Hermens

Meeting Continued

Counselor’s Report

The ACS council met at 8:00 A.M. on August21 in Boston. The following constitutes a summarizedreport to better inform the Richland Section membersof ACS business, some of these decisions will affectyou individually and some will affect the Richlandsection.

For the year 2003, the registration fees fornational meetings for ACS members will be $275. Theannual membership fee for members will be $116 forthe 2003 year. Last year there was a surplus of fundsin the ACS but the budget for 2003 will be negativemore than one million dollars. Within three years theprojection is that there will be a zero deficit. The Soci-ety is also affected by the economic mood of the na-tion after September 11, 2001.

On Wednesday morning at the council meet-ing, it was announced that there were 17,121 regis-tered at the meeting. There were 409 booths sold atthe exposition and the exposition was sold out.

The career and placement center advertisedthat 512 jobs were available at the convention andthat 1242 job-seekers applied. This is reversal of theratio in past years where the ratio of jobs to job-seek-ers has been always greater than 1.4. A total of 4600interviews were reported from this pool. All interview-ers and all interviewees must register on-line in ad-vance of the meeting. No on-site applications are ac-cepted. This reduces the employment of local peoplefor handling this service and reduces cost to the ACS.

A petition was ready for the ACS Board to con-sider that will add some funds to Local Sections anda significant amount for Divisions. The total packagewould increase funding about $900,000 each year.Some of the smaller divisions did not have sufficientfunding to program at national meetings and the mem-bers of divisions initiated this. With this increase, di-visions would be obligated to have more program-ming at regional meetings also. At Boston, the Bud-get and Finance Committee voted 5-0 against thispetition due to the lower than expected revenue forthe Society. The chair of the Board, Nina McClellan,said she would appoint a task force to review theproposal and it will surface again at the spring meet-ing in New Orleans.

The theme for National Chemistry Week forthe year 2002 is “Chemistry Keeps Us Clean”.For the year 2003, the theme is “Chemistry of theEarth, Atmosphere and Beyond”.For the year 2004, the theme is “Chemistry of Toys”.

Finally, I submitted a preliminary proposal forqualifying the Hanford Site as a Chemical Landmark.The proposal will be acted on in October of this year.If it passes the committee’s attention then we will bechallenged to write and defend a full proposal. I willkeep you posted on this matter.

If you have any questions concerning myreport, I may be contacted atrhermens@granderonde.com, or (541) 963-6716.

Biographical Sketch: R. Bruce King was born inRochester, New Hampshire, attended Oberlin Col-lege (B. A. 1957), and was an NSF Predoctoral Fel-low with Prof. F. G. A. Stone at Harvard University(Ph. D. 1961). After a year at du Pont and 4 1/2 yearsat the Mellon Institute he joined the faculty of theUniversity of Georgia where he has been Regents’Professor of Chemistry since 1973. His research in-terests have ranged from synthetic organometallicand organophosphorus chemistry to homogeneouscatalysis and applications of topology and graphtheory in inorganic chemistry. He was the AmericanRegional Editor of the Journal of OrganometallicChemistry from 1981 to 1998 and was the Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Inorganic Chemistry,

published by Wiley in 1994. He is the recipient ofAmerican Chemical Society Awards in Pure Chem-istry (1971) and Inorganic Chemistry (1991). In re-cent years he has published chemistry books entitledApplications of Graph Theory and Topology in Inor-ganic Cluster and Coordination Chemistry (1993) andInorganic Main Group Element Chemistry (1994) anda mathematics book entitled Beyond the QuadraticEquation (1996). Prof. King’s nonchemical interestsinclude the 19th century mathematics of algebraicequations, musical composition, and contract bridge.

If you wish to have dinner with the speaker beforethe meeting, please contact Janet Bryant; (509) 375-3765 or janetlbryant@pnl.gov.

Volunteer Opportunities

Chemistry OlympiadThe following high school chemistry students qualified forthe American Chemical Society National Competition ofthe International Chemistry Olympiad by being the topeight contestants who competed in the Regional Compe-tition of the Chemistry Olympiad.

Ben Cowin Southridge High SchoolJeff Davis Sunnyside High SchoolChris Carlson Southridge High SchoolCraig Weirdet Kennewick High SchoolSonya Ramos Sunnyside High SchoolJoshua Barr Sunnyside High SchoolMelissa Hinman Kennewick High SchoolDavid Williams Davis High School, Yakima

These students represented the best of 254 contestantswho competed in the regional competitions which wereconducted in their individual schools and monitored bytheir chemistry teachers. The contests were scored byScience and Engineering Education Programs staff atPacific Northwest National Laboratory.

The National International Chemistry Olympiad competi-tion was held at Columbia Basin Community College onSaturday, April 20. The all-day event consisted of a mul-tiple-choice section, a discussion and problem-solvingsection, and a hands-on laboratory section. Although notselected for the US team, we certainly thank these stu-dents for their hard work and wish them the best in theirfuture studies.

The results of the 2002 International Chemistry Olympiad,held July 5-14 in The Netherlands, places the teams fromChina, Thailand, and Taiwan as the top winners. The USteam was seventh, overall, out of 57 countries.

Children approach the local section’s boothat last year’s Family-A-Fair

The Student Affiliate Chapter at Eastern Or-egon University received an outstandingaward for the activities performed during the2000-2001 academic year. This is the fourthoutstanding award received in the last fiveyears. Twelve students and four chemistryfaculty traveled to Orlando. Students pre-sented nine research posters in the under-graduate poster session. An additionalposter describing the EOU SAACS activi-ties was also presented at the Sci-mix. Clubmembers raised over $6,000 for the tripthroughout the school year with many fundraising activities including goggle and mo-lecular kit sales, candy sales, dances anda golf tournament. They also received asmall travel grant from ACS and a gener-ous donation from the Richland local sec-tion.

Award WinnersStudent Affiliates WinAcademic Award

Volunteers Needed for NCW Activities

Want to help put into action the ACS’s goal of “Increasing public

awareness of chemistry”? Volunteers are now being acceptedto help with this year’s public outreach during National Chemis-try Week, October 20-26. This year’s theme is “Chemistry KeepsUs Clean”. As we have in previous years, the Richland Sectionwill sponsor a booth at the Family-A-Fair exposition. Volun-teers wishing to donate half a day helping on either Oct 26 or27 should contact Rich Lucke; (509) 376-9060 orrichard.lucke@pnl.gov. The section is also looking for mem-bers to visit local high school chem classes. Don’t worry, theyare a friendly audience and you don’t have to do it alone - wealways send two to each class. To volunteer to visit a class,

contact James Campbell; (509) 376-0899 orjames.campbell@pnl.gov. For more informationon NCW, visit our section’s website,www.pnl.gov/acs/.

Point To PonderSee things as you would have them be, instead of as they are. —Robert Collier

ComingEvents

AIChE Talk, Space Applications of Chemical Engineering, contact Adam P. Poloski, (509) 376-1684, for more information

Tour Speaker, Dr. R. Bruce Kind, An Oxygen-17 NMR Study of Uranyl Hydrolysis & Gelation

Third “Perspectives” session at the CREHST, Chemistry in the Vadose Zone

National Chemistry Week

Family-A-Fair

Local Section Elections

Final “Perspectives” session at the CREHST, Vitrification Feed

September 19

September 24

October 15

October 20-26

October 26-27

November

December 10

Richland SectionAmerican Chemical Societyc/o Editor: Steve Krogsrud4816 W. IrvingPasco, WA 99301

www.pnl.gov/acs/Richland Section

Home Page

Hail & FarewellWe would like to welcome the following new members of

the Richland Section: Wibe Dejong, Carey Haas,

Mohammad Rezaee, Tim Snider, April Carman,

Therese Clauss, P Lee Ferguson, Uljana Mayer, George

Nieman, Jeffrey Sumner and James White. We look

forward to seeing each of you at future Richland Section

functions!

We wish departing members James Lowe, Thomas

Bellus, Paul Majors and James Russo the best of luck

in their future endeavors. In November we will be having elections for the section positions of Chair,Secretary, and Treasurer. Please give some thought about running for thesepositions. You can make a difference! Please contact Brian Rapko; (509)376-1571 or brian.rapko@pnl.gov if you would like more information.

Section Elections

Member BenefitChemical & Engineering News Online (http://pubs.acs.org/cen) offers freelinks to journal articles in a growing number of publications. Links to journalreferences in C&EN articles include not only ACS journals, but also journalspublished by the Royal Society of Chemistry (such as Chemical Communica-tions) and Angewandte published by Wiley-VCH. Readers do not need to besubscribers to these journals to read the linked journal articles. Please con-tact me if you have any questions: Melody Voith, Online Editor, Chemical &Engineering News, 1155 16th St., NW, Washington, DC 20036 http://pubs.acs.org/cen phone: 202-872-4406; fax 202-872-8727