Inside Volume 75, No.2, April 2011 Articles and Features 65 Mechanistic Studies of Enantioselective N-aryl, N-alkyl NHC Ruthenium Metathesis Catalysts in Asymmetric Ring-Opening Cross-Metathesis Renee M. Thomas and Robert H. Grubbs 72 TAML Activators: Green Chemistry Catalysts as Effective Small Molecule Mimics of the PeroxidaseEnzymes Terrence J. Collins 78 We Need to Know More about Atmospheric Chemistry Martin R. Manning 85 Pacifichem 2010: Excerpts from a Student’s Diary Peter G. K. Clark 91 In the Year of Chemistry: From Mendeleev to Albert Einstein – The Periodic Table of the Elements and Beyond Peter Schwerdtfeger 95 Chemistry in Canterbury: 1986-2010 Ward T. Robinson, Michael Edmonds and Darren Saunders 102 Organic Microanalysis at University of Otago in its 75th Year Arthur D. Campbell Other Columns 58 Comment from the President 104 Dates of Note 59 NZIC April News 106 Patent Proze 71 2011 IYC Calendar of Events 108 Conference Calendar 77 ChemScrapes 108 Grants and Awards Advertisers Inside front cover RSC Publishing Inside back cover ChemEd 2011 Back cover NZIC Conference 2011 57 Chemistry in New Zealand April 2011 Comment from the President We are now well into 2011, the International Year of tubes and graphene, commercialization of them has been Chemistry, with details of New Zealand activities avail- neither quick nor easy. Similarly, an article by Katharine able from the joint Royal Society – NZIC website at http:// Sanderson,5 entitled It’s Not Easy Being Green looked at yearofchemistry.org.nz. IYC2011 is a worldwide celebra- how, despite two decades of the green chemistry move- tion of the achievements of chemistry and its contribu- ment helping industry become much cleaner, the revolu- tions to the well-being of humankind, and operates under tion still had a long way to go. the unifying theme Chemistry: our life, our future. The Perhaps the most thought-provoking comments came from NZIC President goals of IYC2011 are to increase the public appreciation George Whitesides and John Deutch,6 in an article entitled of chemistry in meeting world needs, to encourage interest Let’s get practical, where they said that Chemistry needs in chemistry among young people, and to generate enthu- an overhaul if it is to solve big global problems and ad- siasm for the creative future of chemistry. vance fundamental understanding. Business as usual is not However, chemistry can have both its good side and its an option. Specifically, they said that as it grew, academic bad side, and a good assessment of both aspects was made chemistry splintered into many specialized subdisciplines, by the Journal Nature, which dedicated its first 2011 is- but while this structure worked adequately for the relative- sue to the International Year of Chemistry,1 and said that ly simple problems of the last century, it will not work for Chemists should celebrate their discipline’s past as the the more complex problems of the next. They believe that foundation of other fields, and face the future with increas- chemistry has been too slow to exploit new research op- ing confidence. However, Nature actually began their edi- portunities, and that even the best academic chemists have torial,2 entitled Chemistry’s understated majesty, with a a Prussian-like loyalty to the status quo. They believe that quote from US comedian Adam Sandler: Chemistry can chemistry needs to be braver in its research choices and in be a good and a bad thing. Chemistry is good when you how it organizes them. Old disciplinary structures need to make love with it. Chemistry is bad when you make crack done away with, so chemistry can focus on its strengths. with it. This theme was then followed up by a series of We can choose to agree or disagree with some or all of commentaries and articles which looked at both the good the above comments, but regardless of our viewpoint, we and bad aspects of modern chemistry, the central science.2 can take heart from the fact that, despite all the negativ- The commentaries began with an item entitled Legal highs: ity, the Nature editorial concluded with the statement: But the dark side of medicinal chemistry by synthetic chemist/ when chemistry is good, it is very, very good. It deserves pharmacologist David Nichols, who described how his re- its celebration. search on psychedelic compounds had been abused, with Gordon Rewcastle fatal consequences. People had read his published results President on psychoactive compounds in rats, and synthesized the References compounds for human use, without any thought about 1. See: www.nature.com/chemistry2011 3 toxicity issues. Other Nature articles were less dramatic, 2. Anon., Nature 2011, 469, 5. focussing not so much on the dark side of chemistry, but 3. Nichols, D. Nature 2011, 469, 7. on some of its shortcomings. For example, an article by 4. Van Noorden, R. Nature 2011, 469, 14-16. Richard Van Noorden,4 entitled The Trials of New Carbon 5. Sanderson, K. Nature 2011, 469, 18-20. said that despite researchers having spent 25 years explor- 2011 ing the remarkable properties of fullerenes, carbon nano- 6. Whitesides, G.; Deutch, J. Nature , 469, 21-22. Message to our Readers We apologise for any delay in the in the quake, which happened while production and distribution of this they were at the biannual meeting in issue of our journal. You may not the ‘Homestead’ on the Canterbury realise that the production, printing University campus. Council had just and mailing of our journal is done in broken for lunch and were in the sec- Christchurch and that the aftermath ond floor cafeteria from which every- of the earthquake that devastated one escaped safely; the building was the city at 12.51 on Tuesday Feb. 22 not so lucky and has suffered signifi- could well impact on our production cant damage. Dr Gordon Rewcastle team. had received the chain of office from past-president Mark Waterland ear- Readers will be please to know that lier that morning. none of its Councillors were injured 2011 NZIC President Gordon Rewcastle (left) receiving the Chain of Office from Mark Waterland 58 Chemistry in New Zealand April 2011 NZIC News New Zealand Institute of Chemistry supporting chemical sciences April News The New Zealand International Year NZIC Prize for Applied and Indus- sity working with Philip Mountford of Chemistry was formally launched trial Chemistry, on high-valent early transition metal in the Michael Fowler Centre, Wel- ABA Books Denis Hogan Chemical complexes. He attended the Paci- th lington, on Wednesday, February 9 , Education Award. fichem conference in Hawaii on the prior to a fashion display that culmi- way home and delivered a talk and nated work by Jim Johnston and his The closing date with the NZIC Sec- presented two posters. In January team on impregnating wool fibres retariat is 30 June 2011. this year he was made a Paul Harris with gold nanoparticles. The work Fellow by Rotary NZ in recognition was summarized quite beautifully by Details and method of nomination/ of his continued work as Academic Dr Kirsten Lucas and then garments application can be found on our web- Director of the Rotary National Sci- made from the nanoparticled wool site www. nzic.org.nz ence and Technology Forum. Dr and designed by Massey University John Harrison recently returned fashion students were shown. The NZIC MEMBERSHIP from Pacifichem, Stereodynamics designs were made in a competition MATTERS 2010 in Santa Cruz, and a short vis- of which the winner (most outstand- FNZIC iting professorship with Prof Dick ing design) was Greer Osborne. The Council is pleased to welcome Dr Zare at Stanford. Dr Elke Pahl was celebration, hosted by the MacDi- Michael Hay (Auckland Cancer So- appointed lecturer at Massey Univer- armid Institute AMN-5 conference, ciety Research Centre) to Institute sity, joining the Institute for Natural was then treated to a public lecture Fellowship. Sciences (INS) at Albany. Elke’s cur- by Professor Sir Richard Friend rent research activities are focused on (Cavendish Professor of Physics, MNZIC modelling the structure and thermo- Cambridge) in which the early days Mrs Nathalie Thomas-Zenden dynamics of nanomaterials, and she of Rutherford led the audience to the (Waikato) contributed a chapter to the recently modern era via superconductivity, ink published Handbook of Nanophys- jet-printed transistors and into cur- Dr Shaun Hendy (Wellington) ics. Elke gave talks on Towards the rent studies on plastic, bendable and STUDENT MEMBERS Simulation and Melting of Mercury almost indestructible displays em- at the Cluster Meeting (Marlborough ploying organic light emitting diodes Miss Rosanna Archer (Canterbury) Sound) and at the AMN-5 conference (OLEDs). Later in the week, Profes- Mr David Savory (Otago) in Wellington. sor Sir Anthony Leggett (University of Illinois Urbanna-Champaign) ad- BRANCH NEWS Prof Peter Schwerdtfeger was part of dressed some 1500 school pupils on the organizing team for a Pacifichem symposium in Hawaii and gave two science, chemistry, physics and why AUCKLAND we do it – another magical event that invited talks. He then spent one has set IYC off to a great start in this The first Auckland NZIC Branch month on a Dumont D’Urville Fel- country. seminar for 2011 featured Dr Don- lowship in France (Paris, Toulouse, ald Wlodkowic (BioMEMS Research Lyon, Grenoble) collaborating with The RSNZ (NZIC) 2011 Marie Cu- Group, Auckland University) who various research groups on parity rie Lecture Series was inaugurated spoke on Lab-on-a-Chip: Advances violation, Monte Carlo simulations by Prof Margaret Brimble (Auckland in Innovative Chip-Based Technolo- of melting, and on the origin of bio- University) in the Te Papa National gies for Biomedicine. He outlined his molecular homochirality.