R. Kenneth Marcus

Biography

Dr. Marcus earned B.S. degrees (1982) in chemistry and physics from Longwood College and a Ph.D. (1986) in analytical chemistry from the University of Virginia. He serves on the editorial advisory board for three international journals and was the recipient of the 2001 S.C. Governor¹s Award for Excellence in Science Research. In 2010, Professor Marcus was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), in 2012 a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (FAAAS), and in 2016 a Fellow of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy.

Research Interest

The development and application of new plasma techniques for the atomic spectroscopic analysis of diverse materials is a major focus of this research group. Included in this work is the design of atomic emission and mass spectrometry instrumentation employing glow discharge (GD) sources. Instrumentation developed in the Marcus laboratory is now commercially available from a number of manufacturers. Current efforts are directed at the development of the liquid sampling-atmospheric pressure glow discharge (LS-APGD) microplasma as a spectrochemical source for optical emission and mass spectrometric analysis. The sources are being developed in efforts to affect field deployable platforms for applications in the nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear safeguards arenas. Current funding comes from DTRA and the NNSA through the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. A continuing area of emphasis has been the development of novel detection methods for liquid chromatography. The most recent area of liquid chromatography development is a class of polymer fibers as stationary phases for analytical and preparative scale separations of proteins. These capillary-channeled polymer (C-CP) fibers can be extruded from simple commodity polymers, including polypropylene, polyester, and nylon. In their native states, the fibers can affect separations in reversed phase, ion exchange, and hydrophobic interation modes. Extensive efforts are directed at the development of straight forward, on-column, surface modification chemistries that add selectivity to the excellent mass transport properties of C-CP fiber columns. Chromatography funding comes from the NSF. Marcus has been on the Clemson faculty for 30 years, graduating 34 Ph.D. and 10 MS students. He holds over a dozen patents, serves on the editorial advisory board of three scientific journals, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Society for Applied Spectroscopy.