The Department of Chemistry at the College of Science held A master thesis defense.

The thesis discussed the biological activities of some newly prepared selenium and tellurium compounds, where two series of organoselenium and tellurium compounds based on 2,5 bis (chloro methyl) P-xylene have been prepared. Firstly, para xylene reacted with formaldehyde in presence of concentrated hydrochloric acid to form the desired starting material which identified by melting point and infrared spectroscopy, agreement results in comparison with literature.

The study also discussed the biological activity of the prepared compounds. The new compounds show a good biological activity. The study included also evaluation of antioxidant ability as a scavenger of radicals using 2,2Diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazy (DPPH), The prepared compounds  gave a good results comparison with Ascorbic acid (VitC) as a standard materials. Heat of reaction, free energy, entropy and activation energy factors estimated from thermogravimetric analysis.