College of Chemistry

Among the technical and sometimes arcane-seeming debates at this year’s meeting of the International Code Council was one that grew surprisingly emotional: whether building codes should allow the use of polystyrene insulation not treated with flame retardant in foundations, below a 3.5-inch concrete slab. According to Dr. Arlene Blum, at stake was a larger argument about whether some volatile elements, including bromine, are safer for human health if they’re part of longer chains of molecules.

Sometimes solutions to complex, wide-ranging challenges can fit in the palm of your hand. That is certainly true with a developing technology that could help bring carbon capture to scale around the world. Invented at the University of California, Berkeley and supported by a group of entrepreneurial scientists at Cyclotron Road, these breath-mint sized pellets efficiently adsorb carbon dioxide from emission sources.

Until this year Robert Harris and Robert Bergman have been esteemed colleagues at the College. Recently however, when they were at an event discussing an interview Bergman had done with Professor William Lester, they made a very interesting personal discovery. Their lives had more than crossed as children living in Chicago’s Hyde Park. In fact, they had lived about 100 yards from each other across an alleyway.

The discovery that carbon atoms act as a marker of time of death transformed everything from biochemistry to oceanography – but the breakthrough nearly didn’t happen. Martin Kamen had worked for three days and three nights without sleep. The US chemist was finishing off a project in which he and colleague Sam Ruben (B.S. ' Chem; Ph.D. '38, Chem), had bombarded a piece of graphite with subatomic particles. The aim of their work was to create new forms of carbon, ones that might have practical uses. Willard Libby (B.S. '31, Chem; Ph.D. '33, Chem) of Chicago University figured out that the radioactivity generated by carbon-14 could be exploited to tremendous advantage.