Mary D. Menachery DUE 9551157 PA St U-Altoona Campus FY1995 $ 10,080 University Park, PA 16802-1503 ILI - Instrumentation Project: Chemistry Title: Acquisition of a Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectrometer Infrared (IR) spectroscopy is serving as an integral instructional tool in our undergraduate chemistry courses. The major use of the instrument is in the organic chemistry laboratory, but students in the Special Problems and Research course are using the IR for both instructional and research needs, while first year students are gaining experience on the IR in the introductory chemistry course. Students are using the instrument to confirm the identity of products and impurities, estimate the proportions in a two-component mixture, identify functional groups in an unknown substance, and reveal the typical complexity of many natural mixtures such as citrus oils and gasoline. As part of the treatment of the electromagnetic spectrum, students match a small set of compounds with their IR spectra. Students store libraries of spectra and search such libraries easily. Manipulation of stored spectra, such as the subtraction of solvent and impurities spectra, is routine.
