C & E N P H O T O GALLERY
Abstracting the Expo TEXT AND PHOTOS BY IVAN AMATO
FOR MANY PEOPLE, laboratory equipment is as gripping to look at as toasters or washing machines. But hidden in plain sight in the accoutrements of research are functional ensembles of geometry, texture, color, and contour that also carry aesthetic value. One afternoon in March, at the American Chemical Society national meeting in Chicago, I embarked on a photographic hunt-and-gather expedition in the exposition hall at McCormick Place. When I fitted my digital camera with a macro lens, which allowed me to focus on objects much closer to the camera than is possible with standard lenses, I became a witness to a compelling and novel vista of all things laboratorial. Glassware, chromatography columns, even plastic syringe filters took on new, engaging personas. These three pages feature a selection from my harvest.
Above is an assortment of filter cartridges that attach to syringes, part of a booth display by Whatman ofFlorham Park, N.J., which specializes in equipmentfor organic syntheses, including peptide syntheses. On the left is a selection offluorescing quantum dot solutions that sat brilliantly in the booth that Ocean Nanotech ofFayetteville, Ark., rented. WWW.CEN-0NLINE.ORG
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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Extractedfrom its usual housing, this gas chromatography capillary column, which Ifound in a cabinet at Waltham, Mass.-based Thermo Fisher Scientific's rather large plot of expo real estate, took on a jewelry-like quality.
Frozen by photography, a fluorescent solution sloshes around in a huge Erlenmeyer flask on ajumbo-sized reciprocal shaker. For me, this setup was a successful attention-getting ploy by Eberbach ofAnn Arbor, Mich.
A quartz crystal microbalance sensor with its circular gold layer glittering near the periphery caught my eye at the booth occupied by QSense of Glen Burnie, Md. Once the gold layer has been covered with a chemically selective coating, sensors like these are particularly good for detecting and measuring biological molecules.
This glassflask was a small element ofVineland, N. J. -based Ace Glass's expansive display. WWW.CEN-0NLINE.ORG
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Some of the plumbing lines of the Rube Goldberg-esque hydrogenation unit (right), which the Budapest-based ThalesNano was selling, sweep up, down, and around with grace.
Glass vials in pink and red aluminum blocks, which restedface-high at Vineland, N.J.-based Chemglass1 display, look like a modern-day still life.
Photographed with a tight depth of field, a knob among many expresses its individuality on this solvent purification system atNewburyport,- Mass.-based Innovative Technology's booth.
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Additional images captured by Ivan Amato are available on
1 C&EN Online at www.cen-online.org. 71
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