Dr. Michael Wentzel receives Minnesota Pollution Control Agency grant to develop green chemistry curriculum

Dr. Michael Wentzel (Chemistry) received a new grant award of nearly $15,000 from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s Toxicity Reduction program. In the two-year project, green chemistry will be developed as a unifying theme throughout the chemistry curriculum at Augsburg University. Non-major courses will have a new introduction component to green chemistry emphasized in unique laboratory experiments. The chemistry major curriculum already has a large number of green chemistry principles woven in it, but this work will unify these into a clear message across multiple courses. Finally, a new course on green chemistry and toxicology will serve as a capstone on this theme. Dr. Wentzel will collaborate with multiple faculty in the Chemistry department, as well as undergraduate students, in order to carry out this impactful project.

Chemistry Professor Receives Grant for i-NMR Software

Dr. Michael Wentzel, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, recently received an Implementation Grant from the Chemistry Collaborations Workshop and Communities of Scholars Program (cCWCS). This $1,000 matching grant will allow Dr. Wentzel to purchase i-NMR software for interactive spectroscopic analysis of organic compounds. This software will provide students in organic chemistry with a more active and realistic experience with data and an increased understanding of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR).
If you’d like to learn more about this project, please contact Dr. Wentzel at wentzelm@augsburg.edu.