1090th General Monthly Meeting and the Annual Liversidge Lecture
Funeral Arrangements for Plants: An Essay in Organic Geochemistry
Michael A. Wilson, G.S. Kamali Kannangara
and Damian E. Smeulders
Department of Chemistry, Materials and Forensic Science
University of Technology, Sydney
Date: Wednesday 5th July, 2000
Time: 6:00 for 6:30 pm
Venue: University of Technology, Building 4 (enter from Harris St),
Room 221
Organic geochemistry literally is the dead end of science since it is concerned with the transformation of decaying plant material into humic substances, coal, petroleum and natural gas. The transformation process is primarily controlled by the degree of oxidation possible. Under reducing conditions coal and gas are formed and under oxidising conditions humic material is formed. Not surprisingly, the nature of the input vegetation also has an effect on the type of decomposed organic matter produced. One new finding for oxidising environments reported here, is the concept of a host-guest structures where smaller molecules reside within a framework of a macromolecular host primarily derived from lignin. The guests within the host cannot be removed by physical separation. The structure of the host can be determined by pyrolysis gas chromatography mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance techniques. Differential thermal analysis, calourimetry, methylation and gas chromatography mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance data can be used to identify the guests. Some of the guests are probably held by hydrogen bonding but others are true prisoners in that they are alkanes and hence have no binding sites.
Professor Michael Wilson's research interests are in Nanotechnology of Materials, Solid State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Organic Geochemistry and Forensic Science of illicit drugs. Professor Wilson is a former Chief Research Scientist at CSIRO and joined UTS in early 1996. He has some 290 international scientific publications including seven in the prestigious Journal "Nature". He has awards from the University of Auckland (DSc), Institute of Australian Energy, Kyushu National Research Institute in Japan and the American Petroleum Industry. This year he has been a member of the Prime Ministers working group for fighting Crime with Science.