ChemSemBlog

Our last guest speaker for this year, Jeffrey A. Turk works in odor chemistry a field of chemistry closely related to flavor chemistry. Before he entered into the world of fragrance chemistry however, he wanted to make drugs at a pharmaceutical company, describing the concept as “romantic.” Later he worked with scents at International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF), a company manufacturing and creating flavors and fragrances for a year and a half before he decided that he wanted to work with students. He has been at Alma College for four years now as Assistant Professor of Chemistry.

Initially Turk went over the olfactory sense before talking about the scents themselves. This was helpful since even as a science major, Foundations of Biology does not cover the mechanics and function of smell very in depth, so most of the knowledge I brought with me to this lecture was comprised from a Magic School Bus episode. One fact that caught my attention was that for us to smell something the molecule must be small, volatile and hydrophobic. ‘Hydrophobic’ especially raised interest, because I had never really thought about how odor receptors work. I guess this is why water does not have a strong scent. Some of the most valued fragrances have surprising origins. Musk comes from the anal glands of Tibetan deer and ambergris, which exudes a deep sweet odor, is from hardened whale poop. Sandalwood, the ingredient used in many perfumes, has a less exotic origin. Harvested from trees of the same name, sandalwood oil has varying scent according to the region that the tree grew in. Most of fragrance chemistry attempts to recreate the scents found in nature. The syntheses Turk showed to us were aldol chemistry or deviations of it. Different chemists follow different regimens to imitate these natural odors. Some make educated guesses and try to plan out a synthesis while others go about it in more haphazard manner.

Last year in Dr. Murray’s organic chemistry class, the independent research project that my partner and I worked on was the synthesis of raspberry ketones. While that project was more in the realm of flavor chemistry, as expected flavor and fragrance chemistry are closely related. So the personal experience I had brought an added interest to this particular seminar. Also, Turk passed around samples of various fragrances featured in his presentation such as sandalwood and ambergris which was exciting. After all the sniffing we did, Turk gave us a tip to clear our loaded odor receptors by sniffing the inside of our elbows. The soap used to wash the clothes and skin cleanses the nose making the practice equivalent to clearing the palette with lemon sorbet, except much more amusing.

Laymen’s Summary of the Seminar: You should know that almost everything around you is manufactured and synthesized. Even that piney, lemony smell from Wal-Mart. People like Dr. Turk figure out how to make great scents that go into perfumes and other consumer items.

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