A Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometer is being added to the undergraduate laboratories. The instrument is being used in the analytical laboratories to separate and analyze for priority pollutants, drugs, and other chemicals of environmental and social concern; in the organic laboratory, to enable complete characterization of an unknown and the target molecule in a synthetic project; and in the inorganic laboratory, to separate and analyze organometallic compounds synthesized in the laboratory, such as tris (acetylacetonate manganese (III). In the physical chemistry laboratory, it is being used to verify mechanisms via a kinetic isotope effect, as in the iodination of acetone. A significant number of students do research both during the academic year and during the summer. The students doing undergraduate research are finding the GC- MS indispensible in their work. The grantee is matching the award from non-Federal sources.
