Email: dosbourn@ku.edu
Education:
- University of Oklahoma, B.S. Chemistry
Area of Study:
My research primarily consists of the coupling of electrochemical detection (EC) with capillary electrophoresis (CE). In order to use on-column detection for CE-EC the separation circuit must be electrically isolated from the detection circuit. This is accomplished by building a decoupler, which allows the separation current to flow to ground while diverting the analyte flow to the electrochemical cell. The most effective designs have a high decoupler surface area. Unfortunately most of the polymers available do not have the necessary mechanical stability, and the previous decoupler designs were either difficult to build or ineffective in isolating high separation currents. We designed a new decoupler that uses small holes in the capillary, which are subsequently filled with cellulose acetate. We have been able to implement this design to maintain noise levels around 0.5 pA with separation currents as high as 40-45 mA. Currently I am working on a microchip CE-EC device for on-site environmental analysis. The goal is to employ the same strategies on the microchip as we used in the capillary format. This system works well for isolating the detector and optimization of the detector arrangement should provide excellent limits of detection for this field portable device.
Personal Interests:
I am an avid photographer. The pictures on this page are all photos I have taken. The first one is a picture of my catamaran that I took a couple of years ago over the Fourth of July weekend at Grand Lake in Oklahoma. The others are photos I took while in Italy with Jenny and Amy (tow other students in Craig's group). I have set up a darkroom at home so that I can play with the pictures through the entire process. My friends and I enjoy spending as much time as possible outside in the summer. I have a small catamaran, so we often find ourselves at Lake Perry to go camping and sailing. Ryan (also in Craig's group) also has a ski/fishing boat, which means if I get bored sailing I can get a chance to ski or tube. Unfortunately his wife is a stunt skier, so in comparison most of us end up looking pretty stupid. I also enjoy drinking beer in Raeann's hot tub.
