Bucknell University Chemistry Department Acquires Major New NMR Instrumentation

May, 2006

Over the next several months, the Chemistry Department will be installing and qualifying two new nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometers from Varian, Inc.™

For the past thirteen years, the Department’s Bruker Biospin™ ARX 300 MHz (7.1 Tesla) NMR spectrometer has provided hundreds of students with hands-on experience using modern chemistry techniques. Data from this instrument have been featured in scores of peer-reviewed research papers. However, the time has come to upgrade to newer, more capable instruments.

A 400 MHz (9.4 Tesla) DirectDrive™ instrument will take over the duty of routine, daily NMR analysis. Features such as gradient shimming and autotuning will simplify data collection. The higher field strength and modern probe and electronics will greatly improve sensitivity compared to the 300 MHz instrument. The higher field will also provide higher resolution.

A 600 MHz (14.1 Tesla) DirectDrive™ instrument will add significant new research capabilities for biologists, chemists and materials scientists. A hydrogen-carbon-nitrogen inverse probe will be used for protein NMR while a broadband probe will be used by organometallic, polymer, and natural products scientists. A solids probe will for the first time take Bucknell from liquid state NMR into the realm of solid state NMR. This probe will be featured in course work as well as research. This instrument will be used for very long experiments that could not be attempted previously.

These instuments will be a regional facility for undergraduate NMR research for central Pennsylvania. Instrument time will be made available to researchers from neighboring undergraduate universities. The purchase of these instruments was made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation and the support and leadership of the Bucknell Administration.