Laurance A. Knecht

Laurance A. Knecht, 77, a professor of chemistry and an analytical chemist, died in Chapel Hill, N.C., on May 23.

Born in Elgin, Ill., Knecht received a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in 1954. He then earned a Ph.D. in chemistry in 1959 at the University of Minnesota under I. M. Kolthoff.

In 1960, he served briefly in the Air Force, performing chemical analysis in Japan, before taking a teaching position in chemistry at Iowa State University. In 1963, Knecht moved to the University of Cincinnati, and in 1969, he went to Marietta College, in Ohio. There, he taught as a full professor for more than a decade.

While on sabbatical from 1982 to 1984 at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, he joined James Jorgenson’s group and helped develop a microelectrode electrochemical detector for use in capillary liquid chromatography. This research resulted in several publications.

Knecht joined the faculty at the North Carolina School of Science & Mathematics, in Durham, N.C., a two-year, public residential high school, in 1985. He retired in 1996. He was an emeritus member of ACS, joining in 1954.

He was predeceased by his wife of 40 years, Doris, and is survived by his daughter, Anne.