The Chemistry Department is purchasing a Varian 300-MHz Gemini 2000 FT-NMR spectrometer to incorporate modern NMR techniques into all laboratories in its curriculum. Students are introduced to NMR spectroscopy in the first year and use increasingly advanced techniques as they progress through the lab curriculum. First-year students record 13C NMR spectra to help identify unknown organic liquids. Organic Chemistry students record and learn to interpret 1H and 13C NMR spectra of products they generate in the lab. Physical Chemistry students use FT-NMR to measure reaction kinetics and to calculate equilibrium constants and other thermodynamic parameters. In other upper-level courses, students learn more advanced FT-NMR techniques, including NMR of other nuclei, and two-dimensional methods such as COSY and HETCOR. Students use variable temperature FT-NMR to study conformationally mobile molecules, determine activation barriers to molecular rotations, and probe and elucidate the chemical structures of molecules they generate in organic and inorganic synthesis projects.
