AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY CALIFORNIA SECTION VOLUME LXXI NUMBER 2 FEBRUARY 2010 Photo taken by Janet Bryant of National WCC Happy St.Valentine’sPhoto by Day Anastasios John Hart CHAIR’S MESSAGE PAGE 3 FEBRUARY MEETING PAGE 4 THE NADJIK PHEROME: A BOOK REVIEW (L.RIGALI) PAGE 5 ELK-N-ACS (E. KOTHNY) PAGE 6 FEBRUARY CHEMICAL ANNIVERSARIES (L MAY) PAGE 7 MODERATION & COMMON SENSE (A. PAVLATH) PAGE 8 THE CHEMISTRY OF MINERAL & BOTTLE WATER (W. MOTZER) PAGE 9 BUSINESS DIRECTORY PAGE 11 INDEX OF ADVERTISERS PAGE 11 2 THE VORTEX Published monthly except July & August by the California Section, American Chemical Society. Opinions expressed by the editors or contributors to THE VORTEX do not necessarily THE VORTEX reflect the official position of the Section. The publisher reserves the right to reject copy submitted. Subscription included in $13 annual dues payment. Nonmember subscription $15. MAGAZINE OF THE CALIFORNIA SECTION, AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY EDITOR: CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Louis A. Rigali Evaldo Kothny 309 4th St. #117, Oakland 94607 510-268 9933 William Motzer ADVERTISING MANAGER: Vince Gale, MBO Services Box 1150 Marshfield MA 02050-1150 781-837- 0424 EDITORIAL STAFF: OFFICE ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT: Glenn Fuller Julie Mason Evaldo Kothny 2950 Merced St. # 225 San Leandro CA 94577 510-351-9922 Alex Madonik PRINTER: Paul Vartanian Postscript Press 2861 Mandala Parkway Oakland CA 94608 510-444-3933 Printed in USA on recycled paper For advertising and subscription information, call the California Section Office, 510 351 9922 California Section Web Site: http://www.calacs.org Volume LXXI February 2010 Number 2 Chair’s Message then and California Section dues were Paul Vartanian $1.00/year. For perspective, the yearly dues in 1940 were equal to the cost of the Viva The VORTEX dinner at a Section meeting, $1.00. Now The California Section’s yearly dues are only $15, compared to publication, The VORTEX, the cost of a dinner at a meeting of about celebrated its 70th anniver- $25. sary in January. The VOR- By the early 1970s, the Section had be- TEX began in January come less central to the chemical activi- 1940, at a time when world ties of its members. The topical group conditions were in the be- meetings were a thing of the past, the Santa ginnings of the catastrophe of World War II. Clara Valley Section had been established The United States would not be directly in- in 1954, and the San Joaquin Valley Sub- volved in the war for almost two more years. section was on its way to getting to that Ted Cleveland was the founding editor of The point. Robert Matteson became editor of VORTEX and guided it for almost 30 years The VORTEX in September 1969 and until June 1969. He established its high qual- served until April 1972. Editor William ity in both editorial content and usefulness to Stanley succeeded him in May 1972. Bill the Section members. During that time the guided The VORTEX until March 1976. Section underwent some spectacular changes. Editor Robert Grinstead took over in April Meetings of the Section in 1940 consisted 1976. Bob was the first editor I got to of a main speaker and then four topical group know personally as I usually had to drive gatherings of Analytical, Microchemical, to his home in Walnut Creek at deadline Physical, Inorganic; Biochemical and Organic; time to give him my Chair’s Message dur- Educational; and Industrial Chemistry. As an ing my first term in 1987. The VORTEX example, the March 1940 Industrial group was still publishing upwards of 20 pages heard a talk on the “California Sardine Indus- per edition and carrying on with interest- try” by A. H. Mendonca, after the main talk ing columns and news under Bob’s direc- on “The Aging of Crystalline Precipitates” by tion. I. M. Kolthoff. The VORTEX ran 28 pages (continued on page 7) FEBRUARY 2010 3 California Section American Chemical Society February Meeting "A Tour of Distillery No. 209" By Arne Hillesland, Ginerator Date: Saturday, February 27, 2010 Time: 11:00 am (arrive by 10:45 am at site) Place: Distillery No. 209, Pier 50, San Francisco (south of the Ferry Building, near AT&T Park) Cost: no cost (Restaurants are in the area for an after tour lunch or snack) Reservations: RSVP by Wednesday, February 24 to the Section office by e-mail at [email protected] or call (510) 351-9922. Tour limited to 30, no one under 21. Abstract: ist, and he made beer, wine and hard cider in In 1870, William Scheffler bought a patent his spare time as a teenager. for a new design of a pot still in New York. A Bay Area native, a saxophonist, amateur He came west and set up a distillery at Krug chef, gardener and auto mechanic, Arne de- winery in St. Helena, California. In 1880 he clined the offer to attend law school after his purchased his own winery in the Napa Val- graduation from the University of California ley called Edge Hill and the distillery erected at Berkeley with a B.A. in history. It was there was given Federal license No. 209. the early 1980s and with the Silicon Valley After he purchased the Edge Hill prop- as only a short commute, Arne was bound erty, Leslie Rudd, a noted food and wine for a career in high technology management entrepreneur discovered "Registered Distill- as a training, production and quality control ery No. 209" written on a hay barn on the specialist. property. He started his own winery and Twenty-plus years later, after moving from his daughter, Samantha Rudd, now contin- manufacturing and engineering into Artificial ues her father's vision as the owner of Dis- Intelligence software and internet start-ups, tillery No. 209. Arne began volunteering at Distillery 209 in The distillery was set up in San Francisco the summer of 2003. He helped in the initial at Pier 50 to make high quality spirits, gin in commissioning of the copper pot still from particular. The Ginerator starts with a four Forsyths in Scotland, and began working full- times distilled neutral-grain spirit, with which time as Distillery Supervisor in April of 2004. he distills a fifth time to infuse a variety of Working along side Two Scots - the former botanicals. Traditional gin is based on juni- 209 Project Director and a Master Distiller per berry flavor, but Distillery No. 209 uses from Scotland - Arne developed both the 209 citrus, exotic fruits, and spices in its for- Gin recipe and some of the unique distilla- mula. tion techniques that are used in making the gin today. In March of 2005, Arne Hillesland Speaker/Tour Guide: became Head Distiller at Registered Distill- Arne Hillesland is a complete stranger to ery No. 209 and, as a resident of San Fran- distilling spirits, unless you consider that he cisco, is once again rewarded with a short learned the basics of chemistry from his fa- commute. ther who was an aerospace engineer and chem- 4 THE VORTEX The Nadjik Pheromone by bad guys and a few not so usual. There is the obligatory love scene very early in the story Michael K. Hemp: A Book Review and then much later, near the end, there is a L. Rigali story-enhancing brief sexual encounter. The Michael Hemp has a Bay area connection, story line is contemporary with places and graduating as valedictorian from St. Mary’s people we read about in the news every day. College High School in Berkeley and com- Through the years as a Pulitzer Prize win- pleting undergraduate work at UC Berkeley. ning reporter, Wolf has gained inside infor- The guideline used for publishing articles in mation on some covert and secret projects, the Vortex is that the content be chemistry or enough so that he is on the radar of many science related. This article is a brief review bad guys. And these bad guys have their of a thrilling, can-not-put-the-book-down spy way with him, almost. We soon discover novel with a little chemistry and science. In that there may be one or more bad guys who the Nadjik Pheromone, Michael Wolfson, want the development work on the Nadjik (Wolf), the hero of the story, inspires the Pheromone project terminated along with development of a special Gas Chromatograph Wolf and any history of this potentially /Mass Spectrometer (GC/MS) to detect bio- powerful lie detecting system. The various logical molecules that are released when a scenes and dialogs with native warlords and person lies. Some of the ideas for the plot secret agents from Afghanistan, Pakistan, may have been generated during the time that Hawaii, Silicon Valley and Carmel all feel Michael Hemp worked at Shell or later served and sound authentic. as a Special Intelligence Officer to three Com- The story is told in slightly more than 300 manders-In-Chief of the Strategic Air Com- pages and may demand completing in a single mand, Offutt AFB, Omaha, Nebraska. sitting. The story has all of the usual suspects as FEBRUARY 2010 5 ELK-N-ACS indigo and zaffre) are smalt and Berlin blue. Smalt, also known as King’s blue, which con- Dyes and colors tains more Co or Azure blue, which is the in art (part III). darkest product was discovered in 1584. It Evaldo Kothny consisted of a finely ground up silicate glass In previous parts I formulated with cobalt and potassium and II, the most im- (K2CoSi4O10), then leached with cold water portant earth colors as it may hydrolyze under other conditions, of antiquity were then dried.