K.E. Anders Ohlsson Home Page

Personal

Perhaps by coincidence, I was born in Sweden at the day of the Nobel prize winners, December 10, in 1955 in the town of Karlskoga where Alfred Nobel made a large part of his fortune by producing guns. I was given the family name Ohlsson and three (!!) first names, Klas Erik Anders, of which Anders is what people generally call me and Erik is the name of my father.

Education

I started out with a Masters Degree in Engineering Physics in 1982 from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. In 1988, after spending a couple of years outside the university, I signed in as a graduate student at the Analytical Chemistry Department at Umeå university in the northern part of Sweden. I had then jumped from the field of engineering to the academical world, from physics to chemistry and geographically from south to north. After a period of time of acclimatization, I took off and passed my PhD-exam in 1993.

As a graduate student I was supervised by Docent Wolfgang Frech who quickly brought me to the front line of research on graphite atomizers used in atomic absorption spectrometry. Thanks to him I learned the basic rules on how to do science. I also owe much to Professor Anders Cedergren, the head of Analytical Chemistry Department, who foremost provided me with a broader perspective on analytical chemistry. These are the two gentlemen that I regard as my scientific fathers.

After graduation, I received a postdoc scholarship from the Sweden-America Foundation for a visit in 1993/94 to Professor Gary Hieftje and his spectrochemistry group at Indiana university in Bloomington, IN, USA. There I had the opportunity to work with plasma instruments in a very stimulating environment. Dr Hieftje is an outstanding researcher and also an excellent teacher and group leader. Because I was much influenced by him and still feel connected to the Hieftje group, I consider him to be my scientific stepfather.

Present Activities

Back in Umeå and the Analytical Chemistry Department, I am now working hard along two main lines:

Teaching. At the Chemistry Department we have recently started to give technically oriented chemistry courses. I am responsible for the development of two of them:
1. Unit operations and chemical reaction engineering (UCR) which is an elementary introduction and bridge to the central fields of chemical engineering designed for the academical student.
2. Process Analytical Chemistry (PAC) in which the application of analytical chemistry to the monitoring and control of chemitechnical processes is studied. Chemometrics is included as an essential part of the course.
In addition, I am giving lectures on analytical spectroscopic techniques in the courses Analytical Chemistry C, 10 p and Analytical Atomic Spectroscopy D, 10 p
Research. I am at the moment standing with one leg in the past and the other leg in the future:
1. Continuation of research within the atomic spectrometry group. Here are some of my current projects:
  - modelling of the diffusional removal process in the graphite atomizer (together with N. Hadgu and W. Frech)
  - imaging of the quartz atomizer interior (with M. Johansson , D. Baxter and W. Frech )
  - molecular absorption spectroscopy using the graphite atomizer (see exam works)
2. New directions. I am presently cooperating with some other groups within the Chemistry and Physics Departments at Umeå university. Here are some of projects that I am presently much involved in:
  - vibrational spectroscopic investigations of the Karl-Fisher reaction (with A. Cedergren and P. Jacobsson))
  - laserdiode spectroscopy applied to graphite atomizer chemistry (with O. Axner and P. Ljung)
  - polyphosphate speciation using multivariate calibration (with P. Johansson)
  - generation and sampling of aerosols (with D. Marijan and A. Karlsson)
  - spectral curve resolution (with P. Geladi and E. Dåbakk)

Publications

Published or accepted papers

Ohlsson, K.E.A. and W. Frech, J.Analyt. Atom. Spectrom. 4, 379 (1989).
Ohlsson, K.E.A. and W. Frech, Spectrochim. Acta. 46B, 559 (1991).
Iwamoto,E., K.E.A. Ohlsson, D.C.Baxter and W. Frech, J.Analyt. Atom. Spectrom. . 7, 1063 (1992).
Ohlsson, K.E.A., J.Analyt. Atom. Spectrom. . 7, 357 (1992).
Ohlsson, K.E.A, E.Iwamoto, W. Frech and A. Cedergren, Spectrochim. Acta . 47B, 1341 (1992).
Ohlsson, K.E.A., A.Cedergren and W.Frech, Spectrochim. Acta 47B, 1525 (1992).
Ohlsson, K.E.A., R.E. Sturgeon, S.Willie and V.Loung, J.Analyt. Atom. Spectrom. . 8, 41 (1993).
Ohlsson, K.E.A., Doktorsavhandling med titeln: An Atomic and Molecular Absorption Spectrometric Study of the Atomization Chemistry in the Graphite Tube Atomizer. Umeå Universitet 1993.
K.E.A. Ohlsson och G.M. Hieftje, "Atomization of carbon containing species in the inductively coupled plasma". Accepted by Spectrochim. Acta. .
N. Hadgu, K.E.A. Ohlsson and W. Frech, "Modelling of diffusional transport of atomic vapor in the graphite atomizer with end caps". Accepted by Spectrochim. Acta. .

Papers in preparation

D. Sun, K.E.A. Ohlsson and G.M. Hieftje, "A study of matrix effects in ICP-AES using pre-evaporation of the sample aerosol".
N. Hadgu, K.E.A. Ohlsson and W. Frech, "Modelling of diffusional transport of atomic vapor in the graphite atomizer with end caps", Part II.

Present adresses

e-mail: keao@alchemy.chem.umu.se
mail: Umeå university, Department of Chemistry, Analytical Chemistry, S-901 87 Umeå, Sweden.
Phone: int+46 90 7865481
Fax: int+46 90 136310