Abe Stern
Postdoctoral Researcher
Department of Chemistry
Ph. D., Chemistry, 2010
University of South Florida
B. S., Chemistry, 2003
University of South Florida
Contact me: abestern (at) gmail.com
Current projects in the Tobias Lab:
The air-water interface is an exciting place to be! Here, the rotational dynamics and hydrogen bond structure of water look very different than that in the bulk phase. These together with other significant differentiations have important implications on the chemistry and physics that occur at the interface. One recently discovered example of this is the interface's ability to stabilize nitric acid. Typically, we think of nitric acid as a strong acid and would therefore expect to find it dissociated. Surprisingly, near the aqueous solution surface this is not the case! Another source of intrigue surrounding the interface is the explanation of the surface preference of certain ions (soft anions, in particular). Chemists and physicists have been debating its mechanistic origins since the surface tension measurements of Heydweiller in 1910! Together with Prof. Doug Tobias and in close collaboration with Chris Mundy, Prof. John Hemminger, Bernd Winter, Prof. Barbara Finlayson-Pitts, and AirUCI we use molecular simulation as our microscope to investigate the chemistry and physics of the air-water interface.
Publications:
T. Lewis, B. Winter, A. C. Stern, M. D. Baer, C. J. Mundy, D. J. Tobias, and J. C. Hemminger, Does nitric acid dissociate at the aqueous solution interface?, J. Phys. Chem. C 115, 21183-21190 (2011). [Cover Article]
T. Lewis, B. Winter, A. C. Stern, M. D. Baer, C. J. Mundy, D. J. Tobias, and J. C. Hemminger, Dissociation of strong acid revisited: x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and molecular dynamics simulations of HNO3 in water, J. Phys. Chem. B 115, 9445-9451 (2011).
B. Hilker, K. B. Fields, A. Stern, B. Space, X. P. Zhang, and J. P. Harmon, Dielectric analysis of poly (methyl methacrylate) zinc (II) mono-pinacolborane diphenylporphyrin composites, Polymer 51, 4790-4805 (2010).
D. L. Chen, A. C. Stern, B. Space, and J. K. Johnson, Atomic charges derived from electrostatic potentials for molecular and periodic systems, J. Phys. Chem. A 114, 10225-10233 (2010).
J. L. Belof, A. C. Stern, and B. Space, A predictive model of hydrogen sorption for metal-organic materials, J. Phys. Chem. C 113, 9316-9320 (2009).
J. L. Belof, A. C. Stern, and B. Space, An accurate and transferable intermolecular diatomic hydrogen potential for condensed phase simulation, J. Chem. Theory Comput. 4, 1332-1337 (2008).
J. L. Belof, A. C. Stern, M. Eddaoudi, and B. Space, On the mechanism of hydrogen storage in a metal-organic framework material, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 129, 15202-15210 (2007).
C. Ridley, A. C. Stern, T. Green, R. DeVane, B. Space, J. Miksosvska, and R. W. Larsen, A combined photothermal and molecular dynamics method for determining molecular volume changes, Chem. Phys. Lett. 418, 137-141 (2006).
