On May 4, 1892 Thomas Willson, a Canadian inventor, placed some calcium oxide (lime), coal tar and aluminum oxide in a container and heated the mix to a high temperature. Willson was hoping to produce metallic aluminum, an expensive commodity at the time. The thinking was sound. Coal tar — basically carbon — was known...
Read More >>In February 2016, the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development undertook a Parliamentary Review of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA 99). The act, originally passed by former Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien’s government, established, among other things, Canada’s Chemicals Management Plan (CMP). At the time, it was considered...
Read More >>When Jennifer Murphy was growing up in Portugal Cove, NL, her father would take her cod jigging, a uniquely Newfoundland way of fishing that involves throwing a piece of baited line with hooks into the water, then letting it sink. As the line is retrieved, it is tugged...
Read More >>Magnets are fascinating. Imagine the amazement of the ancient Greeks who discovered that some naturally occurring stones, later named magnetite because they were found in the region of Magnesia, attracted iron. The stones also quickly attracted superstitious beliefs. Magnetite was said to have the ability to heal the sick and frighten away evil spirits. Archimedes...
Read More >>In a world where work and research are increasingly unfettered by national borders, Canadian policy needs to shift to accommodate this new reality, says Public Policy Forum president Edward Greenspon. The Public Policy Forum (PPF) was founded three decades ago in Ottawa by federal civil servants to raise the level of policy-making and governance. An...
Read More >>A “Celebration of Chemistry” is a most appropriate theme for the 100th Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition (CSC 2017) taking place in Toronto May 28-June 1, 2017. This landmark event coincides with Canada’s 150th anniversary and the Canadian Society for Chemistry (CSC) is forecasting a national and international audience of more than 3,000 attendees and...
Read More >>Université Laval’s Antoine Marceau says that chemical engineering is key to Canada’s economic prosperity. Photo credit: Amélie Marceau When Université Laval chemical engineering student Antoine Marceau was growing up, his friends would start chatting, as kids do, about the latest shows they were watching on television. Marceau could only look at them blankly. “I had no...
Read More >>As the old adage goes, all good things must come to an end. And so, with some sadness, I report that this will be the final Intellectual Matters. In my first column several years ago, I mentioned that one of my goals for writing a column in each issue of the Canadian Chemical News (ACCN)...
Read More >>The Allied Chemical & Dye Corporation, the precursor to Allied Chemical Canada, Ltd., was formed in 1920, an amalgam of five United States chemical companies established in the 1800s by Washington Post publisher Eugene Meyer and William Nichols of General Chemical. In 1928, Allied opened a synthetic ammonia plant and quickly became the world’s leading producer...
Read More >>My early years were spent in Hungary so it should come as no surprise that my first venture into the world of chemistry involved paprika. Bread smeared with goose fat was a popular childhood delight, always topped with a sprinkling of paprika. No worries about cholesterol back then! One day, however, I got a spicy...
Read More >>There is a perception that chemistry is an objective science, one that should be unaffected by the personal. We know that is not the case. We know that women...
Read More >>U of T PhD candidate Laura Reyes is committed to communicating the virtues of green chemistry.
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