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Realizing there was no book ever written on preparative layer chromatography (PLC), Joseph Sherma, Larkin Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, collaborated with a colleague from Poland to produce a comprehensive guide on the technique.
PLC is a planar chromatographic method used to separate and isolate pure compounds from samples for further analysis and research. For example, PLC is useful for organic chemists who synthesize new compounds and must separate that compound from a mixture of unwanted compounds.
Sherma wrote a chapter on the detection of separated compounds and their removal and recovery. Along with Teresa Kowalska, he is the book’s coeditor; the two also coauthored a chapter offering an overview of the field. Kowalska is a professor in the Department of Physicochemical Basis of Chromatography at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland.
“A book with chapters on the history, instruments, and applications of PLC written by the most knowledgeable worldwide specialists in the field would have great value for providing background and training for scientists wanting to adopt it for the first time, or extend the knowledge of proper procedures and range of applications for those already familiar with the basics of the technique,” says Sherma. “[It] is a relevant and practical comprehensive source of information on PLC for novice researchers and practitioners involved in analytical, environmental, geochemical, biological, medicinal, and pharmaceutical analysis and research.”
PLC is a variation of thin layer chromatography (TLC), which produces a thinner layer of compounds for qualitative and quantitative analysis. Sherma’s research with Lafayette students since joining the faculty in 1958 has focused on TLC.
Sherma used PLC in research with biochemistry graduate and Goldwater Scholarship recipient Alison Campbell ’04, who used the method to study dietary supplements in an EXCEL Scholars project. The researchers published the results of their study in the journal Acta Chromatographica in 2003.
Sherma has spent much of his career advancing the fields of pesticide analysis and chromatography. He received the American Chemical Society Award for Research at an Undergraduate Institution sponsored by Research Corporation in 1995 and a $20,000 grant from the Dreyfus Foundation’s Senior Scientist Mentor Program in 2002 to continue his work with Lafayette students. He is the author, coauthor, editor, or coeditor of over 60 books.
He initiated a student research program in analytical science when he arrived at Lafayette, publishing his first student-coauthored research paper three years later. Since then, he has involved 151 different Lafayette students as coauthors for 224 papers published in peer-reviewed journals. This summer, he is mentoring three EXCEL projects.
He is a past recipient of Lafayette’s Van Artsdalen Prize, Thomas Roy and Lura Forrest Jones Faculty Lecture Award, and Jones Award for Superior Teaching. He also was honored with a Distinguished Alumnus Award by Upsala College and an E. Emmet Reid Award for Excellence in Teaching Chemistry by the American Chemical Society.
Currently, he is collaborating with Kowalska on a book on chiral (enantiomer) separations and analyses by TLC slated for publication next year.