USU Chinese graduate students have received a $665,000 grant for their research in organic chemistry.

The funds will sustain three years of research and when the research is done, the chemists hope to prove that organic chemical reactions are more complex than the one-step procedure that is currently taught. The project is led by Vernon Parker, an organic chemistry professor. This will be the seventh grant that Parker’s research has been given.

Research for the project started in 1998 while observing “reactive intermediates generated at an electrode,” Parker said. It has since transformed into a controversial topic that will potentially disprove textbooks.

Parker is working with former USU assistant professor Jin-Pei Ching who is leading similar research in organic chemistry at Nanki University in China. Parker said he has gone to China four times in the last five years to collaborate with the chemists working on the project. Nanki University is the institution making the continuous research project financially possible. The research project is titled “International Collaboration in Chemistry” and is a division in the National Science Foundation.

Parker said, “We want to know what happens during the process from reactant to product. There is a minimum of two steps to our knowledge, but the research is controversial.”

He said this will be tested by watching how a reactant becomes an intermediate and then reacts furthur to go to the product. The chemists then must understand what is happening to the reactant in the product. Parker said the main goal is to set the science straight on how the reactions take place because starting the reaction process in the wrong place is less effective.

Two Chinese graduate students, Weifang Hao and Zhao Li, are getting their degrees in organic chemistry and have been working on the project for two years. Since the funding allows four researchers to work on the project, two more students from Nanki University are in the process of being selected to come to USU. When Hao and Li graduate, two more students will be sent to USU to fill their shoes. Universities in America allow more opportunities to students because Chinese professors are busy with students and can’t spend one-on-one time with them, Li said.

Hao said the project takes all of her time every day. Even when she isn’t in the laboratory, she is at home thinking about it or keeping herself up to date on the chemistry advances occurring all over the world.

To conduct their experiments, Li and Hao begin by using the designated instruments to collect data from the reactions that take place after combining the chemicals, Hao said. They then analyze the data with programs written by Parker and discuss the results with him to see if any more conclusion can be drawn. Li said he and Hao will perform hundreds of tests to continually prove their theory that the old chemical reaction process is too simple. Hao said they must run many tests because some of the data isn’t acceptable and when problems like this arise, he and Li discuss with Parker how to fix them. She said the subject is controversial because a lot of scientists don’t want to believe they have been wrong all these years.

“We have so much experience in it now. In my opinion the evidence is too good to be contested,” Parker said.

If the research can successfully prove the organic chemical reaction process to be more complex than what is being taught now, the knowledge can be carried over into every field that uses organic chemistry, Parker said. He said the world of chemistry will have taken one step further and the accomplishment will be useful in understanding the chemical systems.

Parker said, “The goal of many scientists is mainly to figure out how things happen.”

He said he aims to develop the project with other faculty and students but the construction of it will take time. The project needs the support of the younger generation who are not attached to old teachings, Li said.

“We hope that more young people will join the research if they are interested,” Li said.

– catherine.meidell@aggiemail.usu.edu