This project involves the acquisition of a hardware/software upgrade to our current 60 Mhz continuous wave NMR spectrometer that will allow it to function as a multinuclear, FT instrument. We seek to have the largest number of science students possible get hands-on exposure to a wide variety of modern instrumental techniques in chemistry. The relatively short spectrum acquisition time, coupled with off-line data reduction and analysis, will allow all science majors at Wittenberg to get experience using this modern spectroscopic technique. Further, in a wide range of courses in the Chemistry curriculum, chemistry majors will utilize this technique as a ubiquitous probe of static and dynamic molecular structure. The sequential nature of the early part of the curriculum allows the students to be introduced to various aspects of the FT-NMR experiment in a layered fashion, where each topic builds upon prior knowledge and skills. Experiments will include the use of FT-NMR as an indirect probe of magnetism and electronegativity in general chemistry, structure analysis by 1H and 13C NMR spectra in organic chemistry, quantitative analysis in analytical chemistry, kinetics analysis and relaxation time studies in physical chemistry, structure in biochemistry using 1H and 31p spectra, and static and dynamic analysis in inorganic chemistry using 1H, 13C, 31p, and 11B spectra.
