This award from the Chemistry Research Instrumentation Program will help the Department of Chemistry at the SUNY--Stony Brook acquire a solid state 300 MHz NMR spectrometer which will be used in research investigations in the following areas of chemistry, material science, and earth space sciences: (1) to study the absorption of basic probe molecules and hydrofluorocarbons on surfaces, using double and triple resonance NMR, and to probe the distributions of ions in disordered continuous solids such as fluorine fast-ion conductors and oxy-fluorides; (2) to investigate speciation in silicate glasses and liquids, in order to couple structural information with the development of thermodynamic models for prediction of phase equilibria of geologically important compositions at elevated pressures and temperatures; (3) to investigate models for metal-cysteine centers in metalloproteins; (4) to study the molecular basis of amyloid fibril formation in type-II diabetes; and (5) to use NMR in close combination with diffraction data, to tackle problems of disorder in mineralogy and zeolite chemistry. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is the most powerful tool available to chemists for the elucidation of the structure of molecules. It is used to identify unknown substances, characterize specific arrangements of atoms within molecules, and to study the dynamics of interactions between molecules in solution. Access to state-of-the-art NMR spectrometry is essential to chemists who are carrying out frontier research. The results from these NMR studies are useful in the areas such as polymers and catalysis, and in biology.
