Northwestern’s chemistry department is one of the largest in the country, according to chemistry Prof. Franz Geiger. With about 300 people on staff, the NU Chemistry Department churns out new innovations in the classroom and on the global level, creating both novel technology and a new generation of scientists.

Innovation in Evanston

Chemistry Prof. William Dichtel teaches introductory organic chemistry and a course on supramolecular chemistry, which explores how molecules interact with each other. But his work is not confined to the classroom; he also runs his own lab at NU.

Dichtel said his lab doesn’t solely focus on the periodic table. Instead, his lab is in the business of discovering new materials, which means making materials that have yet to exist on this planet before.

“We think of materials that haven’t been made and we think of new ways to make them,” Dichtel said. “Once we make them, we figure out all of their unique properties.” 

Dichtel said the work goes beyond theory, as the new materials have practical applications. 

Over the past few years, Dichtel said his lab focused on making novel polymers that can be used for water purification from perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAs) — pollutants that have contaminated water sources. In both the U.S. and around the world, he said, there is a significant societal problem of PFAs.

“They don’t break down in the environment and cause negative side effects,” Dichtel said. “We have invented some of the most promising polymers ever discovered for removing those pollutants from water.”

Following the project’s initial discoveries, Dichtel founded the company Cyclopure, which sells the polymer that works to purify water from PFAs.

While research from his lab has produced innovations that could impact people across the world, Dichtel said his lab’s long-term research may be at risk from the Trump administration’s recent funding cuts.

Ditchtel said the University agreed to take on the financial risk in the short term. The lab costs about $1.5 million annually. While the lab does receive some money from private investors, he said those funds are only a “sweetener” on top of federal government funding. 

“If (the funding cuts) go on for weeks or months or later, I don’t even know what that looks like,” Ditchtel said. “But it doesn’t look good.” 

Chem in the classroom

Some professors, who do not conduct exploratory lab research themselves, still work to facilitate research development by training a new generation of students in a lab environment.  

Chemistry Prof. Katie Gesmundo said she always knew she wanted to go into teaching, but did not initially plan to teach chemistry at the university level. 

“When you go to college for education, they make you pick a subject area,” Gesmundo said. “I picked science as my concentration because it was the subject in high school that I liked, even though my teacher could be good or bad. And it turns out, over the course of college, I ended up liking chemistry the most.”  

Gesmundo teaches two subject areas of chemistry: general chemistry lab and analytical chemistry, which involves studying the structure and function of a molecule. She said the experience of teaching an intro-level lab course differs from that of a higher-level one. 

In the larger general chemistry course, Gesmundo said her goal is to help the students appreciate how science works. 

“In my large enrollment course, everyone’s there because they like science, but they might not like chemistry,” Gesmundo said. “So one of my goals of that course is to at least show them why I like chemistry.” 

With the major-specific courses though, Gesmundo said she aims to equip students with the necessary skills they may need for a career in chemistry. 

In both cases, Gesmundo said she hopes to help students develop creative solutions to problems that go beyond the right or wrong answer in a textbook. She said when she writes new lab experiments for students, she focuses on working toward developing their research skills. 

“I want to teach students how to design experiments and think like a scientist, more than I care about if they can move beakers,” Gesmundo said. 

Leading the future 

By working in the labs, students have the opportunity to lead their own research. Geiger said this assists budding chemists in developing critical skills they need before moving into the academic or industry workforce.

“What a PhD gets you in chemistry is proof that you’ve solved a really hard problem … and that means that you can do this again and again and again,” Geiger said.

Currently, Geiger and his team of undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral students are working on using laser spectroscopy to study different surfaces. This means using lasers to study chemical reactions and physical processes at many scales of length and time, according to Geiger. 

Geiger said the research within the lab has practical applications in environmental chemistry and energy chemistry. 

One project the Geiger Lab is working on in conjunction with chemistry Prof. Regan Thomson is studying aerosol particles in the atmosphere and how the particles activate the formation of clouds. Geiger said this research will explore how the particles impact the balance between the incoming and outgoing radiant energy in the atmosphere and how this might change in a warmer climate. 

Geiger said another ongoing project, which has drawn massive attention to the University, is the lab’s involvement in the discovery of “dark oxygen” — oxygen produced without any sunlight or photosynthesis at the bottom of the sea floor. In collaboration with other researchers, the project studies polymetallic nodules, small formations at the bottom of the seafloor that are hundreds of millions of years old and seem to produce oxygen, according to Geiger. 

The nodules have captured global interest because of their metal compounds, which are necessary for technology such as electric vehicle batteries. Geiger said that much of this metal is currently mined through unethical practices, such as child labor, or produces significant pollution. Geiger also said mining the undersea nodules could have a negative impact on the environment.

“It’s a dilemma, because we probably need to get these metals somehow,” Geiger said. “We hope that our work will help inform how that mining, if it needs to happen, could occur.” 

Since many of the lab’s projects are student-driven, Geiger said he encourages significant collaboration and peer-to-peer learning between lab members to solve these chemistry problems.  

Geiger said building a base of students who can solve “hard problems” in his lab and other labs at NU prepares graduate students to be the future workforce in industrial companies.  

“If we stop doing what we do here, industry has no one to hire. Tesla has no one to hire. SpaceX, any of the companies that rely on engineers, on mathematicians, on scientists and so on,” Geiger said. “The University really is the engine, and there’s no replacement for it.” 

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