Thomas Pritchett

Instructor/Technical Assistant | Cedar Crest College

Allentown, PA, UNITED STATES

Before joining Cedar Crest in 2003, Thomas Pritchett worked both as an analytical chemist and as an environmental chemist for 21 years

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Biography

Before joining Cedar Crest in 2003, Thomas Pritchett worked both as an analytical chemist and as an environmental chemist for 21 years. His work included running the GC/MS support laboratory at Murray State University, working in the Superfund program for the U.S. EPA, and working as an environmental consultant. While with the EPA he served on multiple EPA work groups which were developing guidance on investigating Superfund sites and was chair of the Air & Waste Management Association subcommittee in charge of developing guidance on the use of Optical Remote Sensing for environmental measurements During that time, he also taught numerous short courses on subjects ranging from the use of field analytical instrumentation in soil gas investigations, to the use of optical remote sensing equipment for the determination of emission rates, to fence line monitoring at hazardous waste excavations.

As of December 2015, Thomas Pritchett has been an author on 4 publications and papers in Conference Proceedings. Also he has presented 25 papers at national or regional meetings of professional societies and has been a co-author on 56 an additional papers at such conferences. He has also attended 26 technical short courses in his fields of study.

Current research interests involve the application of emerging analytical techniques to the field of forensic science and determination of the uniqueness of partial fingerprints, and the probability of errors in a match of a partial print to a known full print. He has also spent more than 20 years following in the scientific the issue of global warming and its overall effects.

Industry Expertise (5)

Environmental Services

Renewables and Environmental

Education/Learning

Research

Chemicals

Areas of Expertise (9)

Hazardous Waste Site Investigations

Optical Remote Sensing Applications

Air Pollution

Environmental Chemistry

Instrumental Analysis

Dioxin

Soil Gas Investigations

Nursing Chemistry

Chemistry

Education (2)

Murray State University: B.S., Chemistry and Computer Science

Murray State University: M.S., Chemistry

Affiliations (5)

Member - Northeastern Association of Forensic Scientists
Professional Member - Delta Delta Epsilon international forensic science honor society
Member - American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Chemical Society
American Geophysical Union

Articles (5)

Therapeutic drug assays with gas-liquid chromatography and optical detection

Journal of Chromatography

Clofibric acid (p-chlorophenoxyisobutyric acid), the major metabolite of Clofibrate, a drug used in the treatment of hyperlipemia, was assayed in blood serum using an ultraviolet absorbance monitor as a gas-liquid chromatographic detector. As in other gas-liquid chromatographic assays for this compound, an internal standard, p-chlorophenoxyacetic acid, was added, and the serum was acidified and extracted with organic solvent. The solvent was then evaporated and the acids converted into their methyl esters for analysis. The organic compounds in the effluent were scrubbed into a stream of 2-propanol, at a flow-rate of 0.5 ml/min. This was then "debubbled" and a portion drawn through the 20-microliters UV detector flow cell. With small-volume scubber and associated components, peak-broadening was minimal. Because of their moderately high extinction coefficients at 280 nm, the Clofibrate and the internal standard were detected in the submicrogram range without interference from long-chain fatty acid esters, which have similar retention times on the column used.

Applicability of open-path monitors at Superfund sites

Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering

Air emissions from Superfund sites can potentially have a significant impact on air quality affecting the health and safety of surrounding populations. Although the air pathway is well understood, these air emissions may be difficult to characterize. Remote sensors or open path monitors (OPMs) can have useful applications in measuring site emissions of air toxic compounds during the Superfund process. The air monitoring needs for each step of the Superfund process are identified in this paper and OPMs are compared and contrasted with traditional point monitoring techniques. Example applications of OPMs to Superfund activities are presented. Desirable improvements in OPM technology are also discussed.

A Transportable Remote Sensing, Infrared Air Monitoring System

PubMed

A transportable, remote sensing instrument has been built that is capable of performing real-time quantitative analysis of gas and vapor contaminants of workplace air. The emphasis in this system is on simplicity and sensitivity for use over pathlengths of up to 40 m. A method was developed to overcome the effect of nonanalyte species present in the background spectrum on the quantitation of analytes in the sample spectrum. In addition, results demonstrated that instrument response was proportional to the beam pathlength under homogeneous concentration conditions. The application of software capable of qualitative analysis was also demonstrated.

Ambient air monitoring of a SARA Title III facility using the TAGA® 6000E MS/MS

Journal of Hazardous Materials

SARA Title III legislation requires facilities to report the quantities of regulated chemicals that are used on site in an effort to determine the chemicals' fate. One pathway by which a chemical may leave a facility is through volatilization into the atmosphere. These chemical emissions pollute the environment and may be a potential health problem. The TAGA® 6000E was used to investigate a specific site for chemical losses due to volatilization by analyzing the ambient air on and off the facility's property.

Carbon dioxide helps capture Earth's heat

The Morning Call

2014-10-14

I am writing in response to Edward's Prescott's Your View regarding the relationship of carbon dioxide to climate change. As an analytical chemist with more than 30 years of experience, I am also very familiar with working with numbers and immediately recognized two fallacies in his figures.

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