AV俱乐部

Harm Rotermund was still in the shower early Wednesday morning when the phone started ringing off the hook 鈥� German news agencies wanting to speak to him about his mentor and colleague. His daughter took the cryptic message 鈥� 鈥淓rtl, Nobel, call back?鈥�

鈥淚 see the note, 鈥榃hat鈥檚 this? Did he win the Nobel?鈥欌�� recounts Dr. Rotermund, chair of AV俱乐部鈥檚 Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science. 鈥淢y daughter says, 鈥業 don鈥檛 know. Didn鈥檛 he already win that?鈥欌��

A dial-up connection is frustratingly slow when you鈥檙e looking to confirm such tantalizing details. Minutes felt like hours before Dr. Rotermund could charge up the New York Times online and see that, yes indeed, the Swedish Academy of Sciences had awarded physicist Gerhard Ertl the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

鈥淪o, I called him right away,鈥� says Dr. Rotermund, who has co-authored more than 50 papers with this year鈥檚 chemistry laureate, several of which are cited in the scientific background article to the prize. 鈥淚 say, 鈥淐ongratulations, for your birthday, and that other thing I鈥檝e always wanted you to have.鈥�

鈥淎nd he says, 鈥極h thank you but I must go, the Chancellor (of Germany) can鈥檛 get through.鈥欌��

Special event Harm聽Rotermund and other AV俱乐部 professors will speak at Nobel Night, a special event to mark the awarding of the 2007 Nobel Prizes.聽 It will take place Friday, Oct. 26, 7 to 9 p.m. in the Ondaatje Lecture Hall, Marion McCain Bldg.

Dr. Rotermund and Dr. Ertl, who just turned 71, were colleagues for 18 years at the Fritz-Haber Institute in Berlin. In 1988, Dr. Ertl was just settling in as the new head of the physical chemistry department at the institute, when Dr. Rotermund returned to Germany as a post-doctoral fellow from the United States. After just two weeks, Dr. Ertl dispensed with the six-month trial period necessary for a full-time position and made him a senior scientist.

Dr. Rotermund describes his former boss as warm-hearted, adventurous and driven by a deep curiosity: 鈥淲hen we were doing research, we would come up to him and say, 鈥業 think I have a good idea. Can we try it?鈥� And he鈥檇 say, 鈥業f it works, great. If it doesn鈥檛, you would have learned a lot anyway.鈥欌��

Dr. Ertl鈥檚 brilliance 鈥� 鈥渉e is on an order of magnitude above the rest of us,鈥� says Dr. Rotermund 鈥� lies in the area of surface chemistry, the chemical reactions that take place on surfaces and how this has laid the foundation for modern surface chemistry. Surface reactions are vital in many processes today, for example, in cleaning the exhaust from cars and in creating artificial fertilizers through the interaction of nitrogen and hydrogen. The study of surface reactions has also led to breakthroughs in other fields, including electronics and air conditioning.

Dr. Rotermund was enticed to come to AV俱乐部 a year ago, and one of the first things he did was to invite Dr. Ertl, who retired in 2004, to present the Guptill Memorial Lecture 2006, organized by the Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science.

鈥淚t was wonderful to show him around AV俱乐部,鈥� he says. 鈥淗e鈥檚 my godfather in science.鈥�

Dr. Rotermund鈥檚 own research continues at AV俱乐部; his lab in the basement of the Dunn Building is set up with about $2-million worth of equipment he brought with him from Germany.聽Supported by an NSERC accelerator grant,聽his research involves the investigation of surface reactions in catalytic converters. Deadly carbon monoxide reacts with oxygen on a platinum surface in catalytic converters to create carbon dioxide. But even though very little platinum is used (just two to three grams), it is extremely costly. Dr. Rotermund is trying to find other surfaces that can do what platinum does without the expense.聽聽