Quick Links
Dor Ben-Amotz
Professor—Physical Chemistry
Email: bendor@purdue.edu
Phone: 765-494-5256
Office: BRWN B135A
For Professor Ben-Amotz's individual Home Page click here.
All of our research involves the development of new tools for use in the solution of practical chemical problems. The techniques we employ include Raman spectroscopy, fluorescence, densitometry and sound velocity measurement as well as computer simulation and statistical mechanical modeling. Applications of our experimental and theoretical discoveries range from disease screening, chemical imaging, industrial monitoring and plastic recycling, to global thermodynamic quantitation of chemical processes such as protein folding, drug binding and hydrophobic hydration.
Raman and fluorescence microscopy are combined with near-IR lasers, fiber optics and optical array detector to develop new instruments for micro-chemical analysis, proteomic diagnostics and real-time chemical imaging. These make it possible to identify and map chemical substances in less than 1 second -- fast enough for robotic vision, multiplexed disease screening, on-line process monitoring and automated recycling applications.
Our experimental and theoretical modeling efforts are aimed at better understanding liquid and supercritical fluid chemical processes of relevance to drug design and delivery, polymer processing and reaction yield optimization. We use laser spectroscopy, densitometry and sound velocity to measure changes in molecular vibration, rotation, isomerization, dissociation and solvation-shell structure as a function of pressure and temperature. The results are compared with classical and quantum mechanical models for the effects of aqueous and non-aqueous solvents on chemical processes.
Education
B.A., 1976, Bennington College; M.A., 1981, Brandeis University; Ph.D., 1986, University of California, Berkeley; Postdoctoral Fellow, Exxon Corporate Research Laboratory, 1986-89.Recognitions
- ASME-Innovative Research Award, 1995
- ONR-Young Investigator, 1992
- NSF-Presidential Young Investigator, 1991
Selected Publications
- Ben-Amotz D.;Underwood, R., Unraveling water's entropic mysteries: A unified view of nonpolar, polar, and ionic hydration . Accounts of Chemical Research 2008 , 41 , 957-967.
- Ben-Amotz D., Virial theorem and energy partitioning in systems with mixed power-law potentials . Molecular Physics 2008 , 106 , 547-555.
- Deb S. K.;Davis, B.;Knudsen, G. M.;Gudihal, R.;Ben-Amotz, D.;Davisson, V. J., Detection and relative quantification of proteins by surface enhanced Raman using isotopic labels . Journal of the American Chemical Society 2008 , 130 , 9624-+.