A Survey of Industrial Organic Chemists: Understanding the Chemical

Sep 25, 2014 - More than half of all undergraduates gain fulltime work in the chemical industry or government after graduating with a bachelor's degre...
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A Survey of Industrial Organic Chemists: Understanding the Chemical Industry’s Needs of Current Bachelor-Level Graduates Justin D. Fair,* Elyse M. Kleist, and Dylan M. Stoy Department of Chemistry, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, Pennsylvania 15705, United States S Supporting Information *

ABSTRACT: A survey was conducted of companies from the chemical industry with an emphasis on the organic division. The data include results from 377 respondents from more than 100 different companies. More than half of all undergraduates gain fulltime work in the chemical industry or government after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. This article sheds light on these topics: (i) the current chemical methods, techniques, and instrumentation used in industry; (ii) which attributes or abilities chemical companies desire in newly minted bachelor’s-level chemists; and (iii) how the survey data compare to the current focus on academic training in the United States. Industrial viewpoints of chemical safety are also probed. These results provide insight and guidance as to what should be included in the organic laboratory curricula for those students planning on entering industry and government with bachelor’s degrees. KEYWORDS: Second-Year Undergraduate, Organic Chemistry, Curriculum, Laboratory Instruction, Safety/Hazards, Textbooks/Reference Books “conforms to current academic research standards and techniques” and (2) “applicability of techniques beyond the course for use in other undergraduate labs” had a 93% and 85% repose of “somewhat to very important.” Both of these factors, which influence the design or change of organic laboratory sequence, revolve around common practice as well as techniques that academic institutions feel are prerequisites to advanced chemistry courses. Further, it was reported that conforming to industrial desire was considerably less desirable with 56% of respondents found it “somewhat to very important” and 38% “relatively unimportant.”2 The authors of the current report were most intrigued by the disparity in the relative importance of conforming to academic and industrial standards. It is our belief that academic curriculum should be a reflection of the needs of the sectors to which students gain entrance, whether it is a continuation of their education and training or entering the industry for which they were trained. Given the perceived influence on the organic teaching lab, one may be tempted to believe that most students who graduate from a B.S.-level program enter into a graduate program. The most recent report of “New-Graduate Salaries” by C&E News provides information as to the placement of recent B.S.level chemistry graduates gaining fulltime employment: 39% academia; 53% industry; 7% government; and 2% selfemployed.3 Thus, 60% of B.S.-level graduates enter the industrial or government sectors. There has been some recent discussion on industrial hiring desires of recent graduates and how to close the “Skills Gap.”4

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he American Chemical Society’s Committee on Professional Training (ACS CPT) provides guidelines and supplements for program structure and curriculum, such as the “ACS Guidelines and Evaluation Procedures for Bachelor’s Degree Programs” and “Rigorous Undergraduate Chemistry Programs.”1 These documents provide an overview of what curricular items chemistry programs should include to gain or maintain their ACS approval as well as addressing items that indicate academic rigor. For example, the committee’s recommendation on instrumentation from the “ACS Guidelines and Evaluation Procedures for Bachelor’s Degree Programs” states that, “Approved programs must have a functioning NMR spectrometer that undergraduates use in instruction and research.” The ACS CPT recently revised the instrumentation requirements to include exposure to at least one instrument from each of the following groups: optical molecular spectroscopy, optical atomic spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, chromatography, separations, and electrochemistry/electrophoresis.1b Currently, these ACS CPT guidance documents provide no ranking or recommendation as to how these instruments should be included in the chemical curricula. A recent publication by Martin and co-workers detailed current academic practices in the organic teaching laboratory.2 Their study gathered data from 130 academic institutions providing a snapshot of what is currently taught in the organic laboratory curriculum. The data of Martin’s report focus on laboratory topics, techniques, instrumentation, scale, and safety. In addition to these topics, this academically oriented survey also probed the influence of the factors that affect potential changes to the curriculum.2 The top two factors were (1) © XXXX American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.

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bachelor’s-level chemists. The breakdown of areas of chemical focus and product development cycle are illustrated in Figures 1

Although articles of this type focus on the skills sets and avenues which some graduate programs are taking to address the lack of industrial skills held by new chemistry Ph.D. graduates, there is some crossover that can shed light on the proper training of undergraduate students that enter government or industry. Skill sets, such as communication, interpersonal abilities, teamwork, and an understanding of how academia and industry differ, may help to provide recent bachelor’s-level graduates with a hiring advantage in a saturated workforce. Many chemical educators have proposed moving away from the traditional didactic teaching method and toward exercises that utilize a scenario or a problem-based learning approach to immerse students through application of their conceptual framework for use in the real-world applications found in the industrial setting.5−7 These applied approaches not only allow for an introduction to educational materials but also allow our students to realize a direct application to the learned subject and provides motivation to learning the presented materials.8 Thus, the aim of this study is to provide a snapshot of the current chemical methods, techniques, and instrumentation used in chemical industry for educators to reflect on their own focus in the organic laboratory and the exercises they contain.

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Figure 1. Respondents by chemical division.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Survey Administration

The survey was administered utilizing an online survey system9 for 21 weeks between the dates of 3/29/2012 to 8/23/2012. The target audience of the study was persons currently working in chemical industry. In order to reach this audience, the survey was distributed three main ways: (1) local sections of ACS were contacted via e-mail and requested to inform their members by means of e-mail or local newsletter, (2) e-mails were sent to recent industrial authors of journals frequented by industrial chemists, and (3) posting on chemically relevant social media such as LinkedIn. To further entice responses, an iPad was given away at the conclusion of the survey. A total of 377 responses were recorded over the survey period. Of these, 278 were identified as nonacademic in nature and were used in this survey. The survey contained 33 questions consisting of multiple choice, multiple answer, matrix table, slide rule, and text entry (essay) question types. The average response time was 26 min.

Figure 2. Respondents by product cycle area.

and 2 respectively. Figure 2 also show the proportions of those respondents that are self-identified as from the organic division. It should be noted that respondents could choose more than one product cycle area.

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RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Current Industrial Chemical Methods

The initial goal of this study was to identify the most commonly used reaction methods utilized by organic chemists in the chemical industry. Table 1 contains the relative ranking of current chemical methods used in industry and is organized by the organic chemical division. Contained in parentheses, to the right of each ranking, are the percent of organic respondents who reported daily use of each chemical method. These daily use percentages have been included to better understand how two closely ranked methods compare. A strong correlation of ranking between all survey recipients, “All”, and the organic division was observed and attributed to the quantity of organic chemist as 52% of the survey recipients identified themselves as organic chemists. The responses from all the represented chemical divisions have been included in the Supporting Information for those readers who wish focus on a combined curriculum that illustrates the association of these chemical principles in other chemical divisions. The top ten methods are used by both organic chemists and all respondents with the exclusion of acyl substitution reactions and the electrophilic aromatic substitution and the inclusion of computational analysis and kinetics (Table 1, Chemical Division: All). Kinetics, ranked 18th for organic chemists, but ranked in the top three for all other chemical divisions. It is no surprise that analytical and physical industrial chemists carried

Background Information on Survey Respondents

The most widely reported geographical location of chemical operations was the United States (86%) with the United Kingdom coming in second (5%). Other countries represented in this survey were India, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Finland, Italy, Hungary, Iran, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, Singapore, Ukraine, and Netherlands. Of the 107 different reported companies, DuPont, Pfizer, and Eastman Kodak were the three most reported. The six most identified industrial sectors were, in this order: pharmaceutical; polymer and plastics; fine chemical; biotechnology; consulting; and government. Other less common chemical sectors were: coatings; energetic materials; quality control; oil and gas; and food chemistry. The breakdown of degree level was doctorate (34%), post doctorate (33%), bachelor (17%), and masters (16%). Respondent’s level of position was senior (49%), management (24%), associate (23%), and assistant (4%). These respondents reported spending an average of 24% of their time working with B

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Table 1. Ranking of Chemical Reaction Methods in Industrya Organic Product Cycle Areab (Reported Daily Use, %)c

Chemical Division Chemical Methods

Organic (%)

Organometallics Esterification S N2 Oxidation Nucleophilic addn. to carbonyls Acyl substitution reaction Protecting groups Reduction − H2 Green chemistry Electrophilic aromatic substitution Reduction − metal hydrides Electrophilic addn. to alkenes S N1 Ether synthesis Nucleophilic aromatic substitution Stereoselective synthesis Free radicals Computational analysis Kinetics E2 E1 Diels−Alder

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

b

All

(38) (34) (30) (25) (27) (26) (31) (26) (23) (16) (20) (11) (14) (11) (17) (19) (14) (10) (16) (6) (7) (4)

Discovery

3 2 6 1 7 11 8 4 5 17 12 15 14 18 16 19 13 10 9 21 20 22

2 1 4 3 5 7 6 10 12 13 14 11 15 9 16 17 8 18 22 20 19 21

Refinement

(43) (36) (32) (30) (23) (25) (34) (16) (21) (14) (16) (14) (11) (14) (16) (9) (21) (5) (9) (5) (7) (2)

2 1 4 3 5 6 7 11 12 14 15 10 13 9 16 17 8 18 20 21 19 22

Scale Up

(36) (34) (28) (26) (22) (24) (29) (17) (20) (14) (15) (13) (14) (12) (14) (14) (20) (12) (14) (5) (7) (4)

3 1 4 5 2 7 9 8 6 10 13 14 17 12 16 15 18 19 11 20 21 22

(38) (36) (30) (23) (31) (29) (30) (30) (30) (18) (20) (11) (13) (11) (14) (23) (15) (14) (24) (6) (8) (3)

Manufacturing 2 1 6 3 4 5 13 11 7 10 18 14 17 12 15 20 9 16 8 21 19 22

(40) (50) (30) (23) (33) (27) (17) (23) (33) (13) (10) (10) (10) (17) (17) (13) (23) (10) (33) (3) (7) (3)

Overall rankings based on “Never Used”, “Occasionally Used (Monthly or Weekly)”, and “Routinely Used (Daily).” bRespondents could select multiple product cycle areas. cParentheses only include the percentage of respondents identifying daily use.

a

Table 2. Chemical Methods Experience Desired in Entering Bachelor’s-Level Chemistsa Chemical Division Chemical Methods Esterification Oxidation S N2 Protecting groups Organometallics Reduction − H2 Nucleophilic addn. to carbonyls Reduction − metal hydrides Acyl substitution reaction Electrophilic aromatic substitution Nucleophilic aromatic substitution S N1 Stereoselective synthesis Electrophilic addn. to alkenes E2 Ether synthesis E1 Diels−Alder Free radicals Kinetics Green chemistry Computational analysis

Org (%) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

b

(71) (66) (61) (63) (60) (61) (62) (58) (55) (52) (54) (51) (53) (45) (43) (43) (41) (39) (34) (33) (35) (21)

Organic Product Cycle Areac (% Very Important or Absolutely Required) All 2 1 6 5 4 3 8 7 9 12 13 10 11 15 17 16 20 21 18 14 19 22

Discovery (%)b Refinement (%)b Scale Up (%)b Manufacturing (%)b Academic Survey Rankingd 1 2 9 4 7 5 3 8 6 10 12 13 14 15 17 11 18 19 16 21 20 22

(71) (63) (49) (54) (49) (54) (59) (51) (49) (34) (42) (42) (42) (39) (34) (39) (32) (29) (32) (15) (22) (5)

1 2 3 6 4 7 5 8 9 10 12 11 16 15 14 13 17 19 18 21 20 22

(69) (60) (56) (53) (52) (51) ()55 (52) (57) (43) (45) (45) (43) (41) (40) (41) (36) (31) (32) (20) (25) (16)

1 3 2 7 8 5 4 10 6 11 13 12 9 15 16 14 17 19 21 18 20 22

(71) (66) (63) (63) (59) (59) (66) (54) (59) (56) (57) (53) (57) (46) (44) (46) (43) (41) (33) (40) (40) (23)

2 1 5 6 8 3 11 9 4 7 10 14 13 18 15 12 16 19 17 20 21 22

(73) (73) (54) (62) (58) (65) (58) (58) (58) (58) (62) (46) (50) (39) (42) (50) (42) (42) (50) (42) (42) (23)

6 5 4 15 2 2 2 1 3 9 8 11 13 7 10 14 12

a Overall rankings based on “Relatively Unimportant”, “Important”, “Very Important”, and “Absolutely Necessary.” bParentheses only include the percentage of respondents identifying method as “Very Important” and “Absolutely Necessary.” cRespondents could select multiple product cycle areas. dData obtained from ref 2.

division. Still, the relative ranking of each chemical method in relation to chemical division may help to improve curricular developments in combined laboratories or more broadly

out computational analysis more often. This higher ranking may be reflection in the way in which the chemical method “computational analysis” is considered for each chemical C

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Some in academia may debate that many of these reaction methods with moderate to low relative rankings such as the stereoselective synthesis, unimolecular substitution and elimination, electrophilic addition to alkenes, and Diels−Alder are mainly an academic exercise to better illustrate basic academic principles. Each institution should find its own balance between the real-world application and “traditional” education.

detailed laboratory experiments such as those that better relates the kinetics of simple organic reactions with those seen in biochemical assays. An interesting consequence of including the areas of the development cycle is illustrated in the trends of the relative ranking for Entries 7, 9, 10, and 19 of Table 1. Obviously, protecting groups become less desirable for larger scale reactions as they are ideally removed from synthetic sequences prior to manufacturing. Conversely, it is at the larger scales that green chemistry principles and reaction kinetics become more relevant for organic chemists. Another goal of this study was to see how this data relates to those experiences desired by industry of entering chemists. Table 2 contains a ranking of the same chemical methods probed in Table 1, but these methods are ranked according to the desired experience of those seeking employment as bachelor’s-level industrial chemists. To better determine differences between the relative rankings, Table 2 includes the percent of industrial organic chemists that each reaction method was either “very important” or “absolutely necessary.” A total of 60% to 71% of industrial organic chemists believe that Entries 1−7 in Table 2 were either “very important” or “absolutely necessary” for incoming bachelor’s-level chemists. Entries 8−13 ranged from 53 to 58% and entries 14−22 were below 45%. How do those experiences desired by industry of entering chemists compare to the chemistry taught at colleges and universities? Of the top five ranked desirable chemical methods found in entering bachelor’s-level chemists, four of these methods were also ranked in the top five of current industrial methods: esterification, oxidation, bimolecular substitution, and organometallics. Both of the top 10 chemical methods from Tables 1 and 2 are mainly in agreement with the exception of metal hydride reductions and green chemistry. Although metal hydride reductions drop from 8th in current chemical methods to 11th in methods found desirable, green chemistry, ranked 9th in current chemical methods shifted the most to 21st in methods found desirable in bachelor’s-level hires. There are some stark differences between currently emphasized chemical reactions in academia versus either those currently used in industry or those found desirable in newly minted bachelor’s-level chemists. Included in the last column of Table 2 are the relative rankings of chemical reaction methods most often utilized in the undergraduate organic curriculum, as identified by Martin and co-workers.2 The relative rankings of Martin’s data are both inconsistent with the rankings of both the current chemistry being performed and those methods industry seeks in their new hires. Only oxidation, esterification, and bimolecular substitution are ranked in the top six in current methods, desirable methods, and academic ranking. Contained in the survey conducted herein were five reaction methods not covered in Martin’s academic paper, Table 2, entries 5, 9, 11, 21, and 22. Although there is no mention of the emphasis current academic curricula places on organometallics or acyl substitution and addition reactions, it can be seen that there is a need and a desire for upcoming bachelor’s-level chemists to gain exposure to these chemical reaction methods (such as organometallics, protecting groups, nucleophilic addition to carbonyls, and nucleophilic aromatic substitution). Indeed, some academic departments may place items like organometallics or computational chemistry in other divisional classes.

Reaction Scale

Survey respondents were asked to both identify the scales of reactions performed at their site of operations as well as the scale with which they desired their new hires to have experience with. If more than one scale was performed at a location, respondents could choose more than one. Including all respondents, the scale of chemistry performed at these sites were gram (47%), multigram (44%), milligram (39%), kilogram (39%), and 25% of respondents reported not performing chemical synthesis. Within the chemical divisions, physical, biochemistry, and analytical had a larger preference for milligram scale than organic or inorganic. As depicted in Figure 3, the reactions performed in the organic division were 66% at the multigram, 61% at the gram scale, 52% at the milligram scale, and 54% at the kilogram scale.

Figure 3. Reaction scale reported for organic chemists (% respondents).

Not surprisingly, there was a strong correlation between the scale each respondent performed and their selection within the product cycle; discovery favored milligram over multigram, and those in manufacturing favored multigram over milligram scale reactions. Overall, industrial organic respondents preferred new bachelor’s-level hires to have more training at the gram or multigram scale than any other. Only 39% of the organic survey respondents reported a preference for training at the milligram scale, Figure 3. Across all chemical areas and across all development cycle areas, gram scale reactions were favored the most (55%) for academic training with multigram scale ranked as second. Recently, academic laboratories have reported using “microscale” and “mostly microscale” 38% of the time, “macro or miniscale” and “mostly macroscale” 48% of the time, where 53% of academic departments training across all reaction scales in a “hybrid” approach.2 These data closely resemble what most companies find desirable. Although it may be cost-prohibitive at some institutions, a mix of scale, from milligram to multigram, should be implemented in curricular activities. Current Industrial Techniques

Table 3 lists the ranked industrial chemical techniques by the organic division and includes the percent daily use by D

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Table 3. Currently Industrial Chemical Techniquesa Organic Product Cycle Areac (% Respondents Reported Daily Use)b

Chemical Division Techniques

Org (%)

Filtration Temperature controlled reactions Extraction Evaporation (rotary) Drying solids Air or water sensitive tech. Recrystallization Drying liquids Distillation Column chromatography Thin-Layer or paper chromatography mp or bp determination Lyophilization

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

b

(82) (80) (72) (74) (65) (61) (58) (53) (42) (48) (48) (26) (36)

All

Discovery

1 2 4 6 3 7 9 5 8 10 12 11 13

1 2 3 4 5 6 10 7 11 9 8 13 12

Refinement

(84) (77) (74) (77) (67) (65) (51) (58) (26) (56) (61) (21) (40)

1 2 3 4 5 6 9 7 11 10 8 13 12

Scale Up

(79) (78) (68) (70) (59) (60) (47) (51) (35) (51) (49) (24) (31)

2 1 3 5 4 7 6 8 9 11 10 12 13

Manufacturing

(83) (85) (70) (73) (71) (61) (65) (55) (46) (37) (40) (29) (19)

2 1 4 5 3 7 8 6 9 12 11 10 13

(73) (80) (57) (57) (67) (57) (57) (53) (47) (30) (40) (43) (13)

a Overall rankings based on “Never Used”, “Occasionally Used (Monthly or Weekly)”, and “Routinely Used (Daily).” bParentheses only include the percentage of respondents identifying daily use. cRespondents could select multiple product cycle areas.

Table 4. Chemical Techniques Desired in Bachelor’s-Level Hiresa Chemical Division Techniques Extraction Filtration Temperature controlled reactions Evaporation (rotary) Column chromatography Recrystallization Thin-Layer or paper chromatography Distillation Air or water sensitive tech. Drying solids Drying liquids mp or bp determination Lyophilization

Org (%)b 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

(80) (81) (79) (74) (70) (72) (69) (62) (63) (57) (53) (40) (13)

All 2 1 3 4 6 7 10 5 9 8 11 12 13

Organic Product Cycle Areac (% Very Important or Absolutely Required)b Discovery 1 2 6 3 5 7 4 9 8 10 11 12 13

Refinement

(81) (83) (76) (76) (76) (66) (76) (56) (54) (51) (44) (39) (10)

1 2 4 3 5 7 6 8 9 10 11 12 13

(76) (77) (77) (73) (65) (64) (68) (63) (53) (56) (52) (41) (13)

Scale Up 1 3 2 4 6 5 8 9 7 10 11 12 13

(81) (81) (84) (74) (73) (80) (67) (68) (73) (64) (55) (39) (10)

Manufacturing 1 4 2 5 11 3 10 6 9 7 8 12 13

(84) (84) (88) (68) (68) (88) (68) (84) (68) (76) (68) (60) (20)

Academic Survey Rankingd 2 7 8 and 12e 9 1 3 and 14 6 13 10 5 4 and 11

a Overall rankings based on “Relatively Unimportant”, “Important”, “Very Important”, and “Absolutely Necessary.” bParentheses only include the percentage of respondents identifying technique as “Very Important” and “Absolutely Necessary”. cRespondents could select multiple product cycle areas. dData obtained from ref 2. eSolvent removal or rotary evaporation.

respondents by area of the product cycle. More than 65% of the respondents reported daily use of the top five chemical techniques. There was a large consensus across all areas of the product cycle on both the top two and top five techniques. The discovery and refinement product cycle areas are nearly identical in ranking, whereas those rankings in scale up and manufacturing trend toward chemical techniques used on larger scale manipulations and separations. Evidence for this can be seen in Table 3, entries 5, 7, 9, 10, and 11 with the higher relative ranking of drying solids, recrystallization, distillation, and column chromatography and the lower ranking of thinlayer or paper chromatography. It is interesting to note that 61% of respondents from scale up and 57% of respondents from manufacturing reported daily use of air or water sensitive techniques. There is also some agreement in the ranking of chemical techniques across the chemical divisions as entries 1−3 were all ranked in the top six. This survey found that inorganic and physical chemists more often use the same chemical techniques as organic chemists in an industrial setting than analytical or

biochemists. This information could prove useful when developing combined laboratory exercises. Table 4 lists those chemical techniques which industry finds desirable in their bachelor’s-level hires. The top six techniques were rated either “very important” or “absolutely necessary” by more than 70% of the organic division respondents. For organic chemists, there were deviations within the product cycle areas that were dependent on the scale or nature of their chemistry. Recrystallization and distillation for example, entries 6 and 8 in Table 4, were more desirable for new hires in scale up and manufacturing. Likewise, rotary evaporation and column chromatography (entries 4 and 5) were more desirable in discovery and refinement. A relative ranking of importance that academic departments place on individual chemical techniques is included in Table 4.2 Comparing the rankings of desired techniques and those emphasized in academia, it can be seen that only two of the top six in each overlap, extraction, and recrystallization. Extraction is used extensively in the chemical industry, (72% daily use by industrial organic chemists, Table 3). It is also both ranked high by academic departments and valued highly as a skill within E

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Table 5. Equipment Used in Industrya

Equipment and Instrumentation Fume hood HPLC NMR pH meter GC/MS GC/FID, GC/TCD DSC Melting point apparatus IR (transmission) UV−vis IR (ATR) Glovebox Calorimetry Polarimetry Boiling point apparatus CD

Chemical Division

Organic Product Cycle Areac (% Respondents Reported Daily Use)b

Org (%)b

Discovery

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

(97) (78) (71) (42) (48) (49) (36) (27) (29) (28) (23) (22) (21) (3) (7) (2)

All 1 2 6 3 5 4 9 10 8 7 11 12 13 15 14 16

1 2 3 4 6 7 10 9 8 5 12 11 13 14 15 16

(98) (79) (72) (42) (40) (37) (26) (23) (23) (35) (16) (23) (7) (3) (5) (0)

Refinement 1 2 3 4 6 5 10 8 7 9 11 12 13 14 15 16

(67) (73) (68) (47) (41) (41) (27) (25) (31) (27) (24) (22) (12) (2) (6) (0)

Scale Up 1 2 3 5 6 4 7 10 8 9 12 13 11 14 15 16

(98) (79) (73) (48) (53) (59) (45) (30) (34) (33) (28) (25) (30) (4) (10) (3)

Manufacturing 1 2 9 4 5 3 8 10 6 7 11 13 12 15 14 16

Academic Survey Ranking (%)d

(100) (67) (47) (57) (53) (63) (47) (40) (47) (43) (33) (17) (20) (7) (10) (3)

93 e

84 e e

74 e

98 94f 43 94f e e e e e

Overall rankings based on “Never Used”, “Occasionally Used (Monthly or Weekly)”, and “Routinely Used (Daily).” Parentheses only include the percentage of respondents identifying daily use. cRespondents could select multiple product cycle areas. dPercentages of institutions reporting use of instrumentation and equipment. Data obtained from reference 2. eNo data available. fTransmission and ATR not considered separately. a

b

Figure 4. Importance placed on the ability to interpret spectral data.

ranked higher for manufacturing. This difference for these two instruments in manufacturing illustrates the differences of chemical processes in the development cycle as product purity is more relevant rather than product identification. This rationalization is also illustrated by IR and UV−vis. The highest ranked item, fume hood, may seem odd. Yet, its high ranking denotes not only where most industrial chemistry occurs but also its significant impact as an important engineering control for chemical safety and personal protection.10 The incorporation of training and use of fume hoods in the sophomore curriculum should occur not only to prepare future chemists to work comfortably but also to provide students and instructors alike better air quality in the teaching laboratory. Academia has also seen the need for fume hoods in the organic laboratory (93% of schools reported their use).2 The highest ranked instrument for organic chemists across all areas of the development cycle was HPLC (78% of respondents

industry (Table 4). Column and thin-layer chromatography along with distillation have moderate rankings with regard to the abilities of new hires. These techniques seem to also be highly dependent on the product cycle area with more applications found in two to three areas of the product cycle and may be highly applicable to problem based laboratory exercises. Instrumentation

Respondents were asked to classify their use of 16 pieces of chemical equipment and instrumentation as either “used daily”, “used weekly or monthly”, or “never used”. These results are tabulated in Table 5. There was a large gap of reported use between entries 3 and 4 in Table 5 signifying instrumentation importance. There is little deviation within the areas of the organic development cycle in these top six types of instrumentation with the exception of NMR being ranked lower and GC being F

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Figure 5. Importance placed on the students’ ability to acquire data from instrumentation.

identifying daily use). The high ranking in other chemical areas, such as physical, biochemical, and analytical, illustrates its broad usefulness as a powerful workhorse. Academic institutions ranked NMR, IR, and GC as more important than HPLC, with 62% of institutions indicated that student exposure to HPLC was either not considered or relatively unimportant.2 This level of student exposure is not consistent with the current needs of the chemical industry. Martin and co-workers found melting point was the most used instrument or equipment (98% of institutions).2 We found that industrial chemists ranked it eighth of a list of 16 (40% of manufacturing organic chemists using it daily). Interestingly, 22% of industrial organic chemists in our survey reported never taking a melting point. Why does this disparity between industry and academia arise? Melting points offer a cheap and rapid means of identification while also providing some measure of purity. However, those in the discovery, refinement, and scale up development cycle do not prefer the “quick and dirty” approach. Melting point offers limited information compared to other instrumental techniques (HPLC, NMR, and GC). These techniques also provide more information such as percent purity and identities of impurities. Survey respondents were asked to identify the interpretation, acquisition, and use on new instrumentation as (1) very important, (2) relatively important, or (3) unimportant. New instrumentation was defined as instrumentation less than 10 years old. The majority of industrial respondents believed that the student’s ability to interpret spectra (Figure 4) was more important than being able to acquire the spectrum directly from an instrument (Figure 5). Some respondents relayed comments such as, “It is important for students to be able to critically analyze data and gleam results rather than know how to use specific instrument software to acquire data.” As illustrated in Figure 5, the survey found that industrial chemists as a whole thought an entering chemist should be proficient with the acquisition of chemical spectra slightly favored relatively important with very important closely following. The only chemical division that indicated spectral acquisition was very important was the organic chemists. Upon filtering the data by company to provide for the relative size of each, a correlation can be seen between the

relative size of the respondent’s employer and the desire for entering chemists to be proficient at acquiring data with instrumentation. This correlation is most likely due to the availability for instrumental support staff, as it is more accessible at the larger rather than smaller corporations or startups. Martin and co-worker’s academic survey2 looked at curricular importance of (1) the exposure of instrumentation and (2) hands-on experience to instrumental techniques. The ranking system used “not considered”, “relatively unimportant, “important”, “very important”, and “absolutely important” for GC, HPLC, MS, NMR, IR, and UV−vis. Percentages for the exposure of certain instrumental techniques ranged from 15 to 72% as “very important” and “absolutely required”. NMR led with 72% and IR was second at 67%. Interestingly, HPLC was ranked the lowest with an abysmal 15%. Percentages for handson experience ranged from 18 to 86% with IR leading (at 86%) and NMR in second at 73%. GC was ranked closely to NMR at 70%. HPLC still ranked last with hands-on experience at only 18% of respondents ranking as “very important” and “absolutely required”. Academia seems to place more emphasis on hands-on experience to instrumental techniques (acquisition of data) than it does on the exposure (spectral interpretation) of instrumental data. This approach is in contrast to the desires of companies looking to hire entry level personnel but may be good practice for those students moving on to graduate school. As HPLC is undeniably the industrial workhorse of the organic division in the chemical industry, academic programs may wish to revisit the emphasis placed on this particular instrumentation. An introduction to the technique, with analysis of previously collected data, may be enough to satisfy this requirement. When probing to determine the importance of newer equipment, it was found that as a majority (51%) of industrial chemists felt more importance should be placed on the interpretation of data than acquiring data on the most modern instrument. Only those chemists who identified themselves as organic and physical chemists found it very important to have incoming chemists trained on newer chemical instrumentation. Chemical Safety

Chemical safety in the academic setting11 is starting to gain more attention with the recent incidents being reported in the G

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news. We wanted to identify what topics of chemical safety are covered and then determine what industry deems most important. Respondents were asked to rate each item in Table 6 as “not covered”, “relatively unimportant”, “important”,

larger companies were found to have more days of safety training required prior to allowing new employees to start operations.

Table 6. Ranking of Safety Items in Industrya

The survey also collected data on factors important when hiring entry-level bachelor’s chemists. Results shown in Table 7

Safety Item Maintain Proper PPE Accident Avoidance Hazardous Materials Awareness Proper Chemical Storage ID types and hazards of waste Understand a SDS Cleaning of small spills Fire extinguisher training Toxicity data Cleaning of large spills

Factors in Hiring Bachelor’s Level Chemists

Ranking (% Absolutely Required, % Important or Higher)

Table 7. Hiring Factors for Entry Level Chemistsa

1 (74, 97) 2 (62, 98) 3 (62, 97)

Interpersonal skills Team work Undergraduate research Internship experience Grade point average Exposure to cross disciplinary topics University or College reputation Completion of advanced (duallevel) coursework ACS-approved degree

4 (52, 97) 5 (54, 96) 6 7 8 9 10

(53, (35, (42, (21, (25,

Ranking (Very Important and Absolutely Required, %)b

Factors

95) 93) 88) 87) 81)

Overall rankings based on “Topic Not Covered”, “Relatively Unimportant”, “Important”, “Very Important”, and “Absolutely Required”.

a

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

(84) (79) (49) (47) (29) (27) (28) (19)

9 (17)

Overall rankings based on “Not Considered”, “Relatively Unimportant”, “Important”, “Very Important”, and “Absolutely Required”. b Parentheses only include the percentage of respondents identifying method as “Absolutely Required” or “Very Important”. a

“very important”, or “absolutely required”. Rankings in the table were based on all responses from industrial respondents. Upon inspection of the survey results, it became very evident that chemical safety is extremely important, and Rankings 1−6 had mean responses very close to one another. Therefore, to better define those that are most pursued, the percent of industrial chemists from all chemical areas who believed the item was “absolutely required” as well as the percentage indicating important or higher has also been added in parentheses next to the relative ranking. The highest ranked safety item was identified as maintain proper personal protective equipment (PPE), with 86% of industrial chemists stating it was either very important or absolutely required. Less than 3% indicated that the use of PPE was relatively unimportant or not covered at their company. As a comparison to academia, Martin found that 28% of those respondents did not report the requirement of ANSI safety glasses.2 The first six items in Table 6 were identified as absolutely required by more than 50% of the respondents. These entries can be categorized as necessitating an awareness level of training, the lowest level of training where the last three entries can be categorized as operations level. Understanding a safety data sheet (SDS) was ranked in the middle of the list.12 Yet, a complete SDS, available from the supplier, would list information pertaining to all the items listed in Table 6 and should be the initial starting point for chemical safety data. Cleaning small spills and fire extinguisher training were more often rated “important” and “very important.” The last two items were more often rated as important rather than very important or absolutely required and may stem from onsite personnel such as response teams who are better trained to identify toxicity issues or handle large spills. Another identifier of how companies view the importance of chemical safety can be extrapolated from the number of days of required safety training. A majority of respondents, 54%, identified they received one to two days of training. Twenty-six percent had three to five days of training and the remaining 21% had six or more days of on the job safety training. The

indicate interpersonal skills and teamwork were by far the most important factors when considering a new hire as these entries has a combined “very important” and “absolutely required” percentage of 84 and 79 respectively. Second to these were internship and undergraduate research experiences that showed a preference over more academically oriented factors. It is apparent that current company employees would rather hire someone that they can coexist with rather than solely on his or her academic merit. Rounding out the ranking was the achievement of an American Chemical Society-approved degree, with only 17% of respondents stating that it is “very important” or “absolutely required”. It is the author’s perception that an ACS-approved degree program is a potential indicator of a rigorous curriculum that offers undergraduate experiences and opportunities such as undergraduate research projects, thesis writing, or exposure to instrumentation. However, the view points of the author do not seem to be the perception of the chemical industry as illustrated by low numbers of respondents identifying it as either very important or absolutely required. Survey respondents were also asked to list other factors they considered when hiring entry level bachelor’s chemists. Common responses included good problem solving skills, communication, and writing skills. Respondents also made common mention of (1) verbal expressions of one’s research in a group or public setting, (2) teamwork, (3) practical laboratory skills, (4) drive or intellectual curiosity, and (5) ability to work independently.

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CONCLUSION More chemistry undergraduates will be entering the chemical industry and government workforce fulltime than the number of students who choose to continue on to advanced degrees. The survey data collected provides academic departments more detail in what types of reaction methods, techniques, and instrumentation are currently used and valued in industrial laboratory settings as well as key hiring attributes of B.S.-level H

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(11) Hill, R. H. Creating Safety Cultures in Academic Institutions; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2012. (12) Safety Data Sheets (SDS) have recently replaced of use of Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) in U.S. regulatory requirements.

hires. This work aims at providing guidance to academic departments by identifying reaction methods, techniques, instrumentation, chemical safety, and student attributes that future employers deem essential regardless of the level at which students enter the chemical industry.

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ASSOCIATED CONTENT

* Supporting Information S

A copy of the survey and expanded tables to include tabulated information for all chemical divisions. This material is available via the Internet at http://pubs.acs.org.

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AUTHOR INFORMATION

Corresponding Author

*E-mail: [email protected]. Notes

The authors declare no competing financial interest.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors would like to thank all those who participated in the survey as well as those persons who assisted in advertising the link to the survey. We would like to acknowledge the informative correspondence with Susan R. Morrissey and her colleagues at C&E News. We are grateful for the support offered by IUP’s College of Natural Science and Mathematics for providing financial support.

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REFERENCES

(1) (a) ACS Guidelines and Supplements Home Page. http://www. acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/about/governance/committees/ training/acsapproved/degreeprogram/2008-acs-guidelines-forbachelors-degree-programs.pdf (accessed Sep 2014). (b) Committee on Professional Training. ACS Guidelines Revision: Moving Forward. CPT Newsletter 2013, 11 (2), 1−3. (c) Organic Chemistry Supplement. https://www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/about/ governance/committees/training/acsapproved/degreeprogram/ organic-chemistry-supplement.pdf (accessed Sep 2014). (d) Rigorous Undergraduate Chemistry Programs. https://www.acs.org/content/ dam/acsorg/about/governance/committees/training/acsapproved/ degreeprogram/rigor-supplement.pdf (accessed Sep 2014). (2) Martin, C. B.; Schmidt, M.; Soniat, M. A Survey of the Practices, Procedures, and Techniques in Undergraduate Organic Chemistry Teaching Laboratories. J. Chem. Educ. 2011, 88, 1630−1638. (3) Morrissey, S. R. Starting Salaries. Chem. Eng. News 2014, 92 (22), 28−30. (4) Wang, L. Closing the Skills Gap. Chem. Eng. News 2012, 90, 49− 51. (5) Hicks, R. W.; Bevsek, H. M. Utilizing Problem-Based Learning in Qualitative Analysis Lab. J. Chem. Educ. 2012, 89, 254−257. (6) Stabile, R. G.; Dicks, A. P. Two-Step Semi-Micro Preparation of a Cinnamate Ester Sunscreen Analog. J. Chem. Educ. 2004, 81, 1488− 1491. (7) Wolkenberg, S. E.; Su, A. I. Combinatorial Synthesis and Discovery of an Antibiotic Compound. J. Chem. Educ. 2001, 78, 784− 785. (8) Barros, H. S.; Tamblyn, R. M. Problem Based Learning, An Approach to Medical Education; Springer Publishing Group: New York, 1980; p 109. (9) Qualtrics Survey Software Home Page. http://www.qualtrics.com (accessed Sep 2014). (10) National Research Council of The National Academies, Committee on Prudent Practices in the Laboratory. Prudent Practices in the Laboratory: Handling and Management of Chemical Hazards, Updated Ed.; The National Academies Press: Washington, DC, 2011. I

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