About George Kauffman

A university professor and researcher of considerable renown, George is very much interested in the high school community - he has been a contributing editor of our Journal, Chemical Heritage, The Chemical Educator, and Chem 13 News. A comment from one of his former students: "He [George] demonstrated by example and by teaching the central aspect of chemistry that is usually neglected in courses and textbooks - that it is a continuing process of creation by human beings like me rather than a dead body of facts and equations."

A father of four daughters and a son and a grandfather of eight grandchildren, George has been married since 1969 to Laurie Marks Papazian, a retired schoolteacher who has an interest in the humanistic aspects of science.

Articles

Goals
The goal of this feature column is to provide information and insight about the chemistry of broad classes of materials or chemical substances as well as specific chemical compounds and various commercial products that play important roles in everyday modern life.

Mission Statement

Products of Chemistry articles should provide background or supplementary information for instructors of high school, college, or university chemistry courses. The feature deals with the chemistry of broad classes and types of materials or substances as well as specific compounds or various commercial products that play important roles in everyday modern life that are-or deserve to be-recognizable to high school, college, or university students. Articles about these products may discuss their manufacture or synthesis; the chemical principles underlying their action, properties, or use; how they may be used to teach chemical concepts; methods for modifying them for safe but unusual purposes; and ideas for incorporating them as topics in chemistry courses. Inclusion of experiments and demonstrations involving the products may be included.

Articles Published

Novel Biocatalysts Will Work Even Better for Industry by Alan Wiseman; p55 (Jan 1996).

The Origins of the Use of Antioxidants in Foods by Thomas H. Donnelly; p158 (Feb 1996).

The Chemistry behind the Air Bag: High Tech in First-Year Chemistry by Andreas Madlung; p347 (Apr 1996).

Superabsorbent Polymers: An Idea Whose Time Has Come by Fredric L. Buchholz; p512 (Jun 1996).

Photoionic Supermolecules: Mobilizing the Charge and Light Brigades by R.A. Prasanna de Silva, Thorfinnur Gunnlaugsson, and Colin P. McCoy; p53 (Jan 1997).

Communicative Polymers: The Basis for Development of Intelligent Material by T. W. Lewis and G. G. Wallace; p703 (Jun 1997).

Medicines and Drugs from Plants by William C. Agosta; p857 (Jul 1997).

Chem-Is-Tree by Dana M. Barry; p1175 (Oct 1997).

The Thermobile(sup)TM(/sup): A Nitinol-Based Scientific Toy by George B. Kauffman and Isaac Mayo; p313 (Mar 1998).

Chemical Etching of Group III - V Semiconductors by Najah J. Kadhim, Stuart H. Laurie, and D. Mukherjee; p840 (Jul 1998).

The Chemistry behind Carbonless Copy Paper by Mary Anne White; p1119 (Sep 1998).

Exploring the Ocean - Stating the Case for Chemistry by Paul J. Scheuer; p1075 (Aug 1999).

The Chemistry of Modern Dental Filling Materials by John W. Nicholson and H. Mary Anstice; p1497 (Nov 1999).

Organic Vapor Sensors for Food Quality Assessment by Colin L. Honeybourne; p338 (Mar 2000).

Using Microorganisms in Synthetic Organic Chemistry by Stanley M. Roberts; p344 (Mar 2000).

Drug Metabolism: The Body's Defense against Chemical Attack by Andrew V. Stachulski and Martin S. Lennard; p349 (Mar 2000).

Artificial Glass--The Versatility of Poly(methyl methacrylate) from Its Early Exploitation to the New Millennium by Michael S. Chisholm; p841 (Jul 2000).

The Influence of Solidification Techniques on the History of Material Culture by Norman E. Shank; p1133 (Sep 2000).

Polymer Nanocomposition Approach to Advanced Materials by Christopher O. Oriakhi; p1138 (Sep 2000).

Developing New Antibiotics with Combinatorial Biosynthesis by Nicola L. Pohl; p1421 (Nov 2000).

Old Yet New - Pharmaceuticals from Plants by Peter J. Houghton; p175 (Feb 2001).

Chemistry and Molecular Electronics: New Molecules as Wires, Switches, and Logic Gates by Michael D. Ward; p321 (Mar 2001).

Are You Ready for [a] Roundup? -- What Chemistry Has to Do with Genetic Modifications Bert Pöpping; p752 (Jun 2001).

Gas Hydrates: From Laboratory Curiosity to Potential Global Powerhouse by Robert E. Pellenbarg and Michael D. Max; p896 (Jul 2001).

Microwave Ovens -- Out of the Kitchen by Sarah L. Cresswell and Stephen J. Haswell; p900 (Jul 2001).

Chemistry Under the Microscope - Lab-on-a-Chip Technologies by Coulton H. Legge; p173 (Feb 2002).

Blending in with the Body by Andrew L. Lewis and Mike Driver; p321 (Mar 2002).

Chemistry Perfumes Your Daily Life by Anne-Dominique Fortineau; p45 (Jan 2004).

The Monosodium Glutamate Story: The Commercial Producation of MSG and Other Amino Acids by Addison Ault; p347 (Mar 2004).

Dentifrice Fluoride by Philip E. Rakita; p677 (May 2004).

Chocolate: A Marvelous Natural Product of Chemistry by Ginger Tannenbaum; p1131 (Aug 2004).

Chemistry of Durable and Regenerable Biocidal Textiles by Gang Sun and S. Dave Worley; p60 (Jan 2005).

A Supramolecular Approach to Medicinal Chemistry: Medicine Beyond the Molecule by David K. Smith; p393 (Mar 2005).

Our Everyday Cup of Coffee: The Chemistry behind Its Magic by Marino Petracco; p1161 (Aug 2005).

Chemistry of Moth Repellents by Gabriel Pinto; p1321 (Sep 2005).

Intelligent Thermochromic Windows by Ivan P. Parkin and Troy D. Manning, p393 (Mar 2006).

Luminescent Molecular Thermometers by Seiichi Uchiyama, A. Prasanna de Silva, and Kaoru Iwai; p720 (May 2006).

The Discovery and Development of Cisplatin by Rebecca A. Alderden, Matthew D. Hall, and Trevor W. Hambley; p728 (May 2006).

Chemistry of Electronic Gases by James R. Clark; p857 (Jun 2006).

Lubricating Grease: A Chemical Primer by Craig J. Donahue; p862 (Jun 2006).

Nonfood Applications of Proteinaceous Renewable Materials by Justin R. Barone and Walter F. Schmidt; p1003 (Jul 2006).

Nature's Way To Make the Lantibiotics by Heather A. Relyea and Wilfred A. van der Donk; p1769 (Dec 2006).

The Chemistry of Swimming Pool Maintenance by Carl Salter and David L. Langhus; p1124 (Jul 2007).