Princeton Section
 

Princeton ACS Meeting Announcement

 

Monthly Dinner Meeting

 

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

 

our guest speaker will be

 

Professor Joseph Delfino

Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences, University of Florida

 

 

“Industrial Ecology Meets Environmental Chemistry”

 

 

Social mixer begins at 5:30 pm in Frick Laboratory,

Taylor Commons, Princeton University.  Presentation is at 6:30 pm in the Auditorium followed by dinner in Taylor Commons.

.

 

Abstract

In recent decades, the concept of sustainability entered the mainstream of thinking in society and eventually became incorporated into segments of corporate America. Over time, early leaders in this emerging field created the concept and term Industrial Ecology to provide the underlying science to support sustainability initiatives.

 

Environmental Chemistry emerged separately, perhaps in the late 1950’s and through the 1960s, when its first texts appeared. ACS subsequently accepted Environmental Chemistry as a re-named Division incorporating water, air and waste pollution in the 1970s. Environmental Chemistry forged an understanding of the fate and transport of persistent chemicals that entered America’s waterways and then accumulated in living organisms and sediments.

 

Polychlorinated biphenyls [PCBs] are perhaps the most serious chemicals to have ever assaulted our national waterways. Labeled “toxic” and “priority pollutants,” they were banned from production and use in the USA in 1976 yet they still reside in the environment. Had Industrial Ecology and its concepts [e.g. life cycle assessments] been around when PCBs were first developed, perhaps these global pollutants would never have gotten out of the laboratory. PCBs, and eventually PCB substitute compounds, form the basis of a case study to be discussed that demonstrates one example of a linkage between Industrial Ecology and Environmental Chemistry.

 

Biography

Dr. Delfino earned his BS in Chemistry and Philosophy from Holy Cross College and a MS in Chemistry at the University of Idaho. His Ph.D. in Civil & Environmental Engineering and Water Chemistry was earned at the University of Wisconsin-Madison under the guidance of Dr. G. Fred Lee.

He has served on the faculties of the U.S. Air Force Academy [while on active duty as a Captain in the USAF], and, after a stint in the consulting industry, joined the University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty, and for the past 29 years, has been at the University of Florida. His interests include water chemistry and analysis, water resources sustainability, and industrial ecology. He is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Water Resources Association and is a Fellow of the Association as well as AAAS.

Reservations:

The meeting will be held in Frick Laboratory (the new chemistry building), Princeton University (see map). The social mixer will begin at 5:30 pm in Taylor Commons (the atrium of the new chemistry building).  The lecture will be held in the Auditorium at 6:30 pm followed by dinner in Taylor Commons. 

 

Frick Laboratory is located at the east end of the pedestrian bridge on Washington Road, adjacent to the Weaver Track and Field Stadium.  Parking is available in Lot 21, corner of Faculty Road and Fitzrandolph Road or other lots along Ivy Lane.  The seminar is free and open to the public.  Reservations are required for dinner, which is $20 ($10 for students).  Please contact Louise Lawter (215-428-1475) by May 5 to make reservations. Reservations must be canceled no later than May 9 to avoid being billed for the dinner.