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Research Facilities
Chemistry Department faculty members undertake a wide range of challenging projects. Research focuses on the traditional areas of chemistry (organic, inorganic, analytical, physical and biochemistry) and also medicinal, polymer and environmental chemistry. The Faculty and Staff page provides links to all the chemistry department faculty and a description of their research interests. Contact a professor to learn more about a project. Research is conducted using the department's outstanding laboratories and instrumentation (see below).
Financial support for research in the chemistry department has come from federal and state granting agencies and laboratories. In addition, industrial support has been growing. Agencies and foundations supporting work in the department include the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Health, the Petroleum Research Fund of the American Chemical Society, the Research Corporation, the Florida Solar Energy Center, the St. John's River Water Management District and the Florida Department of Natural Resources. Industrial sponsors include Monsanto, DowElenco, Shell Development, Eli Lilly, Wesley Industries, International Paper, Sphinx Pharmaceuticals and several local companies.
Florida Tech's chemistry department is fortunate in its neighbors. Several cooperative programs exist with Brevard Community College and the University of Central Florida; members of the three chemistry departments have enjoyed many fruitful discussions of our common professional interests.
Strong professional ties exist between the chemistry department and researchers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, less than an hour from campus. Research collaborations related to manned and unmanned missions to Mars, environmental remediation and the safety of the Space Shuttle are currently underway between chemistry department faculty and KSC scientists.
Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution (HBOI) is located in Fort Pierce, about one hour south of Melbourne. HBOI has a division whose charge is to discover pharmaceutically useful materials in marine organisms. HBOI has research vessels and a full range of collection, isolation and characterization equipment, including a 500-MHz NMR spectrometer. Florida Tech scientists in the area of marine natural products consequently find collaboration with HBOI extremely useful.
Chemistry department faculty take advantage of the expertise of researchers right here on campus. Most chemistry faculty currently or very recently have collaborated with scientists and engineers in other departments, studying such topics as marine chemistry, molecular sensors, semiconductor photocatalysis and nanotechnology education.
The department's research space is located in the new 70,000 sq ft Olin Physical Science Center. This facility houses faculty members' offices and research laboratories as well as classrooms, teaching laboratories, conference rooms and the Chemistry Department's main office. Space has been designated for several instrumentation rooms, including an NMR facility that houses three NMR spectrometers (360, 300 and 60 MHz). Rooms for photochemistry, glassblowing and computational chemistry are also available.
Evans Library subscribes to the major chemistry journals, Chemical Abstracts and SciFinder Scholar. Beilstein is on hand for access to the older literature. Evans Library's collections are supplemented by an efficient interlibrary loan service. A library staff member serves as the Chemistry Department's Information Advocate, helping faculty and graduate students perform literature searches and access information.
Florida Tech maintains machine and electronic shops staffed by full-time personnel. These facilities can be used to assist with faculty research and student projects. |
The research hardware of the chemistry department, like the department in general, is in the midst of a very rapid expansion program. Research equipment is available to chemistry students and faculty.
Beyond the equipment mentioned below, laboratory facilities at FIT include: dry box, laminar flow safety hoods, vacuum apparatus, automated fractional separation apparatus, furnaces, ovens, analytical and bulk balances, roto-vaps, glass-blowing facilities, and standard small equipment. Additional major equipment in the Chemistry Department includes:
- Bruker 400 MHz NMR spectrometer (research-grade Fourier transform instrument with full multinuclear and multidimensional capabilities)
- Bruker 360 MHz NMR spectrometer (research-grade Fourier transform instrument with full multinuclear and multidimensional capabilities)
- Anasazi 60 MHz NMR spectrometer for general and organic teaching laboratories
- RHK Technology, Inc. SPM 100 scanning probe microscopy feedback control electronics with SPM 32 associated software
- Nanoscience EasyScan 2 scanning tunneling microscope for teaching laboratories
- Stanford Research Systems SR530 lock-in amplifier
- Waters Alliance HPLC with photodiode array, conductivity detectors
- Waters Modular HPLC systems with dual model 501 pumps and model 490E programmable multiwavelength detector
- Hewlett Packard G1800A gas chromatograph mass spectrometer
- Perkin-Elmer model 1240 liquid chromatograph
- Perkin-Elmer model 5000 atomic absorption spectrophotometer
- Varian SpectrAA-20BQ+ double beam atomic absorption spectrophotometer with graphite tube atomizer
- Jasco V-550 UV/vis spectrophotometer
- Hewlett Packard 8453 diode array UV/vis spectrophotometer
- Nicolet Magna 760 FT-IR spectrometer with microscope attachment
- Nicolet Magna 550 FT-IR spectrophotometer
- Nicolet IR200 FT-IR spectrometer with ATR attachment
- Horiba Jobin Yvon Fluoromax-3 fluorometer
- Applied Photophysics SX, 18MV-R stopped-flow reaction analyzer
- Photon Technology International nitrogen/dye laser spectroscopy system
- Lexel argon ion laser (1W)
- Complete pneumatically stabilized Newport optical bench, complete with optical mounts, lenses, mirrors, beam splitters, etc.
- Parr 1459 semimicro bomb and 1425 solution calorimeter, microprocessor controlled
- LKB 2107 microcalorimetery system
- TA Instruments DSC2920 modulated differential scanning calorimeter
- Perkin-Elmer model DSC-7 differential scanning calorimeter
- Cahn model 113 thermogravimetric analyzer
- TA Instruments Model 2950 Hi-Res thermogravimetric analyzer
- Chatillon LTCM-6 Tensile Tester with digital date collecting software
- Kayeness D-1060 Contact Angle Viewer
- C. W. Brabender Independent 3/4" Vented Extruder, 25:1 L/D
- Princeton Applied Research Versastat II potentiostat with micro-cell kit
- BAS CV51 Potentiostat
- Brinkmann 665 Dosimat
- CEM MDS-81D microwave sample preparation system
- Gaussian '03 and Spartan '06 molecular modeling software w/ appropriate hardware
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