Resources

Facilities

The Chemistry Department places a strong emphasis on experimental work. To this end, the Chemistry department has expended considerable funds to provide outstanding laboratory facilities. Indeed, we feel that our undergraduate laboratories are as well-equipped as any undergraduate laboratories in Canada.

Our laboratory facilities include:

• Newly renovated undergraduate laboratories that include large fume hoods for safe manipulation of reagents.
• A chemistry department workroom equipped with computers having access to software including LoggerPro, Maple and ChemDraw.
• A NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) spectrometer capable of performing proton and carbon-13 experiments.
• A newly renovated instrumental suite that houses multiple instruments available for use in both undergraduate lab work and research.

Equipment and Instrumentation

In keeping with our goal of providing Students and Faculty with access to modern instrumentation for laboratory techniques, the Chemistry Department continues to provide new equipment and instrumentation and has modern facilities in the following specific areas:

Chromatography:

• Analytical HPLC (computer controlled, UV/refractive index detection, and dual pumping solvent gradient control).
• Gas-Liquid Chromatography.
• Low pressure, high pressure, and preparative HPLC.
• Gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GCMS).

Spectroscopy:

• UV/VIS spectrophotometery.
• FTIR spectroscopy for solid, liquid, and gas phase samples (including Diffuse Reflectance, Specular Reflectance, and ATR as well as other FTIR techniques).
• Multinuclear NMR spectroscopy.
• Mass spectrometry.
• Microwave plasma atomic emission spectrometry.

Our undergraduate laboratories also have facilities for:

Fractional distillation, Kugelrohr micro-distillation, and vacuum distillation; rotary evaporation; calorimetry; refractometry; gas phase kinetics; preparation of anhydrous solvents; purification and use of non-aqueous and dipolar aprotic solvents; reactions carried out at low and at high temperatures; generation and manipulation of reactive reagents (e.g. diazomethane); inorganic, organic, and organometallic syntheses; manipulation of sensitive materials under an argon or nitrogen atmosphere.