This award from the Chemistry Research Instrumentation and Facilities Program will assist the Department of Chemistry at Iowa State University in the purchase of a quadrupole mass spectrometer. The faculty members whose research is dependent upon mass spectroscopy will greatly benefit from the acquisition of this instrument. Research projects to be carried out with this instrument include: analysis of high and low molecular weight polar compounds, along with liquid sample introduction capability; the development of new synthetic methods for the synthesis of medicinally useful compounds; studies of free radical and electron transfer processes; characterization of organometallic complexes; the study of molecular recognition; and new pathways for the total synthesis of natural products. A high resolution mass spectrometer is an instrument used to measure the precise molecular weight of a molecular ion. This information is an important piece of data used to help determine the atomic composition and, sometimes, the molecular geometry of a molecule. It is one of the essential tools needed to learn the detailed structure of newly synthesized molecules.
