Major research instrumentation includes a 600 MHz Varian Inova NMR spectrometer and a Finnegan LTQ FT mass spectrometry system. Both systems are University instrumentation and are accessible to researchers across the WVU campus.
Through funding provided by the National Science Foundation, the University purchased a Varian Inova spectrometer and renovated laboratory space to house this high-resolution 600 MHz instrument. It is anticipated that this $850,000 spectrometer will benefit researchers at West Virginia University and throughout the state. On October 30, 2003, the facility was dedicated with a special symposium. Lectures on current NMR research were given by Professors Philip Grandinetti, Pat Hatcher, and Charles Pennington, all of Ohio State University, and by Professor Joseph Ackerman of Washington University in St. Louis.
The NMR spectrometer has both solution and solids capability.
The Thermo Finnigan Linear Trapping Quadrupole mass spectrometer is interfaced to a ion cyclotron resonance Fourier Transform mass spectrometer. The latter unit has a resolution in excess of 500,000 and a mass accuracy less than 2 ppm. The entire system is capable of detecting sub-femtomole
(<1E -15 mole) amounts of analytes.
Other Department instrumentation for teaching and research include two JEOL 270 MHz NMR spectrometers. Optical spectrometers include UV/VIS, FT-IR, fluorescence, flame and graphite furnace atomic absorption, and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission instruments. There are two gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer systems.
The Department generates its own liquid nitrogen with two unique units in the Chemistry Research Laboratories.
