Warwick Chemistry Departmental Seminar Prof Evan Williams Berkeley

Warwick Chemistry Departmental Seminar Prof Evan Williams Berkeley, College of Chemistry Thursday 22 February 4. 00 pm in LIB 2 (ground floor, library) Fast Reactions in Aqueous Nanodrops Electrospray ionization can produce a virtually unlimited variety of ions that are confined in gaseous aqueous nanodrops of various sizes. A new rapid mixing method that uses theta-glass capillaries to mix two solutions into various size droplets makes it possible to monitor reactions that occur in sub microsecond time frames while using 2000 times less material than conventional mixing apparatus. Precise thermochemical measurements using a method we call ion nanocalorimetry enable accurate electrochemical red-ox potentials to be measured, and this method is used to establish an absolute electrochemical scale entirely from experimental measurements. Effects of confinement and effects of ions on the hydrogen-bonding network of water molecules located remotely from the ion will be presented and these measurements provide new insights into Hofmeister ion effects and various other properties of ions in water. Biography Prof. Williams did his Ph. D with Fred W. Mc. Lafferty at Cornell University in 1989. He has been at Berkeley since then and has developed a wide range of elegant experiments in mass spectrometry and physical chemistry. He is editor of the RSC journal, Analyst, and recently won the Theophilus Redwood award of the RSC for excellence in communication in analytical science.