Brousseau Hall is a top-notch science facility housing the Biology and Chemistry Departments. The Chemistry Department includes research labs and 4 large teaching labs, all of which are designed for maximum safety and enhanced student experience. Lab enrollments are capped at 16, and each lab has individual student work areas and plenty of fume hood space.
Facilities, Equipment, and Other Resources
The Saint Mary’s College Chemistry Department is housed in Brousseau Hall, which was constructed and opened in 2000. The laboratories have numerous fume hoods with appropriate facilities (inert gas connections, in house vacuum, two walk-in hoods for preparatory chromatography, etc.) to safely prepare various organic and inorganic compounds and derivatives for chemical analyses. The laboratory has typical synthetic equipment (e.g. vacuum pumps, rotary evaporators, melting point apparatus, etc.).
For chemical analysis, the Department has a robust collection of instrumentation. For chemical product characterization, there are two FT-IRs, a Bruker multi-nuclear high field NMR (1H at 400 MHz), two Agilent 8453 UV-Vis diode array spectrometers, and a Perkin-Elmer LS50B scanning fluorimeter.
For analytical separations, the Department has GC/MS with ion trap detector, another GC/FID instrument, and two 1100 series Agilent instruments where one instrument has a diode array and fluorescence detectors in series. For analytical and bioanalytical chemical analyses, there are additional instruments such as a Bio-Rad Benchmark UV-Vis plate reader and BioTek Synergy MX fluorescence plate reader which utilize standard 96 well plates for analysis. For various electrochemical experiments, the Department has four Pine instrumentation potentiostats and various electrodes. The Department also owns a Parr Bomb Calorimeter, a Microtox Luminescence instrument and a Niton field portable XRF elemental analyzer.
Various instrumentation with selected features are pictured below.
The high field NMR is a Bruker instrument. It has an autosampler which helps in recording routine spectral data for the Organic Chemistry lab and recording numerous experiments on research samples.
The instrument has an autosampler which minimizes the chance of a sample tube broken in the instrument.
The cryogenic magnet system with autosampler shown with a up close view.
Agilent 8453 instruments are routinely utilized for student laboratories and research work.
Perkin-Elmer LS-50B fluorescence instrument functions as a reliable research grade scanning fluorimeter.
Plate Readers (UV-Vis absorbance and fluorescence)
Bio-Rad Benchmark has a Peltier thermal control and records both endpoint and kinetics assays (with various plate configurations including 96 and 384 wells).
BioTek Synergy Mx is the fluorescence plate reader (standard 96 well plates).
The plate readers have been used in Environmental Chemistry and Biochemistry labs.
Screening methodology instruments
Microtox Luminescence instrument quantifies the light output of Vibrio fischeri to screen aqueous samples for various pollutants.
Niton field-portable XRF for elemental analysis on solids, dust wipes, and plastics. Students are routinely using the instrument at field sites and in the laboratory.
Chromatographic instrumentation
Two Agilent 1100 series HPLCs are present in the Department collection. The instrument pictured has an autosampler, PDA and a fluorescence detector.
Pine instrumentation can be configured with various microelectrodes or use the printed curcuit electrodes.