Over the past several years, I have been interested in the stoichiometry of reactions between analytes (such as Al(III)) that are solvated with ligands (such as trihydroxyazobenzene) that are immobilized onto a modified silica gel surface. The aluminum:ligand complex is produced either as a 1:1 fluorescent complex or a 1:2 nonfluorescent complex and each has a different lambda max in the visible allowing for simple modes to follow the reactions. We have investigated several different sidechains on the tethers and have unexpected stoichiometries resulting as sidechains are changed (e.g effect of hydrophobicity covered in a recent paper: Analytica Chim. Acta, 316(1995)391.)  We have continued the project to look at further hydrophobic effects.

In conjuction with Mark Melnychuk (BU Biology), we have been looking at how precipitation events effect the concentrations of analytes measured in streams. Preliminary investigations with nitrate and phosphate as the pollutants has shown that the effect of dilution due to precipitation is counteracted by the inflow of new pollutants from adjacent lands. Our study is now aiming towards higher order pollutants, such as pesticides, using the departments HP GC/MS.

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