The Eleventh Annual Academic Achievement Week - College of Arts ...

CHEMISTRYPoster 26Combustion & IR Exhaust Analysis of FuelsWilliam Currier / Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Patrick HoltRecently, growing concerns about air pollution and global warminghave led to increased scrutiny on the emissions generated by theburning of fossil fuels. Though carbon dioxide is the most cited pollutantproduced by fuel combustion, varying conditions can resultin the production of a wide range of other by-products equally ormore harmful to the environment and climate. Carbon monoxideand hydrocarbon compounds, among others, are also commonly produced, andthese can be many times more damaging by volume than CO2. While the formationof these byproducts is well understood, the manner in which varying atmosphericconditions during the process of combustion can affect their formation is not asthoroughly documented. Use of a bomb calorimeter allows for the combustion of avariety of fuel samples under controlled conditions, and for collection and analysisof the byproducts. IR analysis of the product gas is used to detect the identity andrelative amounts of gases present. In this manner, it is determined how environmentalvariables like pressure and temperature can affect the production of pollutants.Poster 27Biginelli Synthesis: An In-Depth StudyBrooke Herndon / Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Graham EllisThe Biginelli reaction, a very early example (1893) of a multicomponentreaction (MCR), uses an aromatic aldehyde, urea, andbeta-ketoester under acid catalysis to yield dihydropyrimidinones;molecules which exhibit a wide range of biological activities suchas antiviral, antitumor and antibacterial properties. This researchfocused on gaining a better understanding of some of the key variablesas they relate to product yield. Two different synthetic methodologies werestudied: solvent-free and solution-phase. In addition, five variables were studied:type of catalyst, amount of catalyst, reaction time, substituents on the aldehyde andchanging urea to thiourea. The main focus was originally on solid-phase synthesis,but after poor yields and difficulty recovering product, the focus shifted to the solutionmethod. The products were synthesized and then characterized by using meltingpoints, thin layer chromatography (TLC) and 1H nuclear magnetic resonance(NMR) spectroscopy. A total of 11 products were synthesized with impurities presentin some of the products. The yield for the products fell between 15 and 72 percentdepending on the reactants used.24