Reed McNeil Izatt

Reed McNeil Izatt (October 10, 1926 – October 29, 2023) was an American chemist who was emeritus Charles E. Maw Professor of Chemistry at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

His field of research was macrocyclic chemistry and metal separation technologies.

Reed McNeil Izatt was born in Logan, Utah on October 10, 1926.

His first ten years were spent on a ranch in Sumpter Valley, Oregon where he attended school in a two-room schoolhouse.

He developed an interest in geology and astronomy.

His family then returned to Logan, Utah and he graduated from Logan High School in 1944.

On June 6, 1944, Izatt enrolled at Utah State Agricultural College (now Utah State University).

In 1945 and 1946, Izatt served in the United States Army and from 1947 to 1949, he was a missionary in the United Kingdom for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

While stationed at Fort Douglas, Izatt studied at the University of Utah and in 1951, he received a bachelor of science in chemistry.

Izatt took postgraduate studies in chemistry at Pennsylvania State University.

He was mentored by W. Conard Fernelius and in 1954 received a doctorate degree.

Izatt died in Salt Lake City, Utah, on October 29, 2023, at the age of 97.

Izatt worked at the Mellon Institute for Industrial Research (now part of Carnegie Mellon University) for two years before taking a faculty position in the Department of Chemistry at Brigham Young University (BYU).

In the 1960s, Izatt and Christensen developed high-precision titration calorimeters capable of simultaneously measuring equilibrium constants and heats for chemical reactions rapidly and with precision.

These calorimeters were marketed worldwide through TRONAC, a chemical instrumentation company located in Provo, Utah.

This calorimeter line was later acquired by TA Instruments.

He was the BYU Annual Faculty Lecture in 1970.

Izatt received the Utah Award (1971) (Salt Lake Section, American Chemical Society); the Huffman Award (1983) (Calorimetry Conference); the American Chemical Society Separations Science and Technology Award (1996); the Utah Governor's Medal for Science and Technology (1990); and the First Annual Alumni Achievement Award (2001) (Utah State University Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry).

Izatt was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1982).

In 1988, IBC Advanced Technologies, Incorporated (IBC) was founded in Provo, Utah by Izatt, Bradshaw and Christensen.

IBC commercialized work in chemical separations using an environmentally safe process based on molecular recognition technology (MRT).

The MRT process enables the rapid and highly selective separation of metals from solutions even in the presence of complex matrices consisting of high concentrations of competing metals and high concentrations of acids or bases.

He retired from BYU in 1993 as the Charles E. Maw Professor of Chemistry.

Izatt and James J. Christensen, a chemical engineer, founded a thermochemical institute at BYU to promote and facilitate interdisciplinary research.

Reed M. Izatt's number in the ISI rankings is 68.

Izatt and his colleagues, James J. Christensen and John L. Oscarson constructed and used a variety of novel high precision calorimeters to study a number of host and guest chemical systems of both academic and commercial interest.

Izatt's thermodynamic results have been used in the development of macrocyclic and supramolecular chemistry, molecular recognition, heats of mixing, nucleic acid chemistry, metal cyanide chemistry, chemical separations, amino acid microspecies formation and high- temperature corrosion chemistry.

Izatt and Christensen made the first extensive thermodynamic study using titration calorimetry of the highly selective metal complexation properties of metal-cyclic polyether interactions.

This work was followed by research correlating metal ion selectivity to macrocycle structure in a variety of solvents using a range of metal ions and organic amine cations.

Using chiral macrocycles and chiral alkylammonium salts, Izatt and his colleagues were the first to establish host–guest chiral recognition in a given system by more than one experimental method (temperature-dependent 1HNMR spectroscopy in CD2Cl2, titration calorimetry in methanol, and selective crystallization) and to report K, ΔH, and ΔS values for the interactions, thus quantitating the reactions.

Subsequent x- ray crystallographic results provided a structural basis for the recognition.

Use of fluorophores appended to macrocycles provides advantages over other techniques for selective and sensitive metal ion detection.

Izatt demonstrated that certain 8-¬hydroxyquinoline derivatives attached to diazamacrocycles elicit a strong fluorescent response when complexed to selected closed-shell metal ions.

That is, Hg2+, Cd2+, Zn2+ and Mg2+.

The novelty of this work lies in the high-fluorescent selectivity these ligands possess for the indicated metal ions in the presence of competing metal ions.

The work presents the possibility of producing novel supported sensor systems capable of metal detection.

In principle, detection limits could be well below parts per trillion (ng/mL).

This level of detection coupled with the high metal ion selectivity imparted by the macrocyclic ligand could make these systems valuable in detecting target metal ions in environmental chemistry and as a means of continuously monitoring target metal ion concentrations in industrial streams.

Izatt and his colleagues were the first to attach macrocycles to a solid matrix and make highly selective metal separations.

This achievement resulted in the establishment of IBC Advanced Technologies, Inc. (IBC) which commercialized the discovery.