ECampus Coordinator Kim Thackray and Dr. Jeff Gautschi at the UC Davis Pre-Medical and Pre-Health Professions National Conference
Since Chemistry is The Central Science, students in a variety of majors need to take at least one class in Chemistry. This is especially true in the health professions—everyone from lab technicians to nurses to physical therapists to doctors—all need to have an understanding of chemistry. That is why Dr. Jeff Gautschi (OSU Cascades and Ecampus instructor) and Kim Thackray (Chemistry Ecampus Coordinator) had a booth at the UC Davis Pre-Medical and Pre-Health Professions National Conference in early October.
At this conference, they had the opportunity to speak with many different types of students that could benefit from taking OSU Chemistry online—
-High school students who might want to begin their college coursework in Chemistry while still in high school.
-College students in California who may be having trouble getting in to the Chemistry classes they need in order to advance in their major.
-Post-bac students looking toward professional school—Physical Therapy, Physician Assistant, Medical school, etc.—who need chemistry as a prerequisite for their application.
-Pre-health advisors and advisors from community colleges.
The wide range of online Chemistry classes offered by Oregon State University can meet the needs of all these students and more; check out what we are offering this term!
Area of study / position title: Chemistry Ecampus Coordinator
Why chemistry? (What about it initially interested you, etc.) – Tell me a funny story
I have always loved Chemistry (I have a rusty undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering), so was thrilled to be able to join the Chemistry department staff. I understand what it is like to have acid holes in the front of all your jeans.
Research focus (in non-science terms) or basic job duties?
My main duties are—
* supporting the Ecampus faculty
* collecting and analyzing data to show the effectiveness of our program
* reviewing transcripts and managing override requests for Ecampus students
* working to grow our online program through marketing and outreach
One thing that you truly love about your job?
Our online students come from all over the world, and take our classes for a million different reasons. One thing I really love is talking with a potential student who doesn’t really know what they want, and helping them to understand our program and find a class that meets their needs. Turning a “potential student” into an “OSU student” gives me a thrill!
One interesting/strange factoid about yourself.
I lived in Barcelona for 4 years when my children were small.
Have you looked around and noticed that more and more items are powered by lithium ion batteries? All cell phones and laptops use lithium ion batteries, and automobiles and even ships are moving toward this technology. Advances in technology are making these batteries (and the products they power) smaller, lighter, and longer-lasting—but what happens to the batteries once they have outlived their usefulness?
Dr. Sloop enjoys football too.
The current technology for handling used batteries follows 2 tracks: batteries are either ground up in order to extract the expensive components (nickel, cobalt), or…they go to the landfill. Good earth stewardship demands a better, lower-energy alternative. Dr. Steve Sloop (OSU, 1996), founder of OnTo Technology, is in the forefront of this field, helping to change the battery waste flow into a battery resource flow.
Working closely with researchers and students at Willamette University and OSU, OnTo Technology is developing direct recycling processes that entail disassembling used batteries into their reusable components, ensuring component quality, and then introducing these components back into the battery manufacturing process. The associated recovery technologies, which must continually evolve as lithium-ion battery technology evolves, use much less energy and create much less waste than current recycling methods. Although their new procedures are somewhat more labor-intensive, Steve calculates they use 1/62 as much energy (based on the Hess cycle calculation for smelting, boiling, and purifying the valuable components). If the energy used to originally extract these materials from the earth is included, the savings are even greater.
OnTo Technology came into being as a company in 2004, starting with a loan from the Oregon Department of Energy. This loan allowed Steve to hire a staff and to purchase equipment for pilot-plant scale research. A battery recall by Apple provided the raw materials required for initial testing. Interestingly, one of the first revenue streams for this fledgling company was reselling perfectly functional batteries (obtained in the recall but not on the recall list) on eBay. Since that time, OnTo Technology has largely moved away from the small consumer electronics batteries to work with automobile and ship batteries; a grant from the US Department of Energy, Vehicles Division supports this newer focus.
When asked about the business model for his company, Steve explains that OnTo Technologies is not planning to become a battery manufacturer. Instead, their goal is to license battery recycling technology to a manufacturing partner; currently they are working with XALT, a major US based manufacturer of large format batteries for cars and boats, and other manufacturers as well. The scientists at OnTo are working to keep up with rapidly evolving battery technologies, in order to keep their partners in the forefront. Their main product is knowledge and expertise in this exciting field.
OSU’s Mike Lerner
In addition, OnTo works with OSU Chemistry’s Dr. Mike Lerner and his group to characterize material structures and compositions at different points in the recycling process. This information helps guide OnTo’s process development. Collaborating for several years now on battery chemistry, Dr. Lerner and Dr. Sloop met 20 years ago when Steve was a doctoral student working with Mike.
Battery companies are not only interested in Steve’s ideas in order to save money on minerals. There is momentum in local and state governments to require battery recycling, in order to reduce the toxic load in landfills; California already has such laws. In addition, the marketing value of being considered a “green” manufacturer cannot be overstated. Steve believes recycling is inevitable; he is leading the way in developing the best way to do it.
Many challenges remain; some manufacturers still think it is crazy to consider processes that are so labor intensive when it is easier/cheaper to grind and smelt, or discard, old batteries. In the future, an automated disassembly line may reduce the required labor. Right now, the scientists at OnTo Technologies continue to work on these challenges.
Chemistry online? How is that possible? More and more students are finding that taking an OSU Chemistry class online is not only possible, but is a great way to meet the requirements of their degree program in a way that fits well in their life.
During the 2012/2013 academic year, students took more than 6600 credit hours of Chemistry classes online, second only to the Fisheries and Wildlife department in number of student credit hours. Most terms, about 12 classes are offered, including 2 different series of General Chemistry and the complete Organic Chemistry series. The CH 121/122/123 series is completely online, with the labs provided by OnLineChemLabs. For the higher level classes, the labs are offered in a condensed format that make it easy for distance students to travel to campus for a short time (like a 3 day weekend) to complete their requirements.
Who are our students? Our online instructors have students from all over the world, including students in the military in Afghanistan. Our students include working people that want to complete their degrees, spouses of military personnel, stay-at-home parents, and many others. Some on campus OSU students have found that taking their chemistry online fits well in their schedule as well.
If you are interested in learning more about online chemistry here at OSU, please check out our website, or email Kim Thackray at kim.thackray@oregonstate.edu.
