Recognized for career achievements in inorganic chemistry
Chemist John D. Corbett of Ames, Iowa, will be honored on March 28 by the world's largest scientific society for nearly 50 years of achievement in discovering entirely new kinds of solid-state compounds. He will receive the American Chemical Society Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry at the Society's national meeting in San Francisco.
To foray into uncharted territory - as Corbett has throughout his career - means "looking for things that we literally can't imagine until we find them," said the inorganic chemist, a professor of chemistry at Iowa State University. "And the more unusual, the better."
Adventurers like Corbett are the foundation of solid-state chemistry. With the compounds they discover, other researchers can develop products: cell-phone batteries, catalytic converters, laptop screens, corrosion-resistant alloys and more. Or they can simply explore what new compounds reveal about the physical world.
Many of Corbett's "inventions" are atoms arrayed in structures scientists have never seen before. For example, metal atoms may bond to each other and form chains, sheets and complex networks. In conventional substances, such as table salt, isolated metal atoms bond to non-metals (in this case, sodium to chloride to make salt). But they do not bond to each other.
"Many of the new compounds we make are very reactive to air and moisture," he said. "So we have to handle them in inert atmospheres."
Two of the elements Corbett's group has combined in novel ways are scandium and tellurium (next to calcium and iodine in the periodic table, respectively). The reactions require containers made of inert materials such as tantalum (next to tungsten) because glass would itself react in the process. The researchers heat the elements to high temperature and then, after they cool, probe for new structures using X-ray techniques.
When asked to describe the kind of person who might look for "the unimaginable," the chemist paused. "Someone who's curious," he replied. "Someone who likes looking in dark and dusty corners. I've been at it so long because it's so fun."
The ACS Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry is sponsored by Strem Chemicals Inc. of Newburyport, Mass.
A nonprofit organization with a membership of 161,000 chemists and chemical engineers, the American Chemical Society (www.acs.org) publishes scientific journals and databases, convenes major research conferences, and provides educational, science policy and career programs in chemistry. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.