Dr. Bruce
Mattson nd his students developed interesting, safe and
convenient methods for generating and manipulating small
samples of
gases for classroom demonstrations, laboratory experiments
and study. We have
developed classroom demonstrations and laboratory
activities suitable
for use at a variety of levels ranging from the middle
school and high
school levels up through university-level freshmen
chemistry students
and chemistry majors taking descriptive inorganic
chemistry. The
results of this work have been published in a series of
articles in
Chem13 News, the Journal of Chemical
Education and in two books. All
together over 150 experiments have been devised for the a
variety of
gases including CO2, H2,
O2, N2, NH3, NOx, C2H2, H2S, SO2, Cl2, HCl, CO, C2H4, CH4, and N2O. A
Web page is available.
For the past decade, our focus has shifted to our Ògas
reaction catalyst tubeÓ developed with students here at
Creighton. The current version of the catalyst tube
consists of a small glass tube (6 mm diameter x 10 cm)
containing ~ 1 mg nanoparticle palladium on alumina
support. Always with undergraduate research
students, we designed, developed, and published a series
of articles on gas-phase catalytic reactions. All
along the way, the design of the catalyst tube improved
and now can be constructed for about $2 and used
indefinitely.
Time exposure of
the
chemiluminescence
reaction between luminol and oxygen in aqueous KOH.
2017: U-shaped catalyst tube containing
0.5% nanoparticle palladium on alumina beads.
Pictured here in a water bath.
The research group during Spring Semester,
1999:
From the left: Andrew Mattson,
Anand Rajani, Paras Khandhar, Joseph Nguyen
(seated),
Bart Brandenberg,
Bruce Mattson, Michael Anderson, Lauren
Worth,
Maneesh Bansal
