Facilities

Departmental Resources

The Department of Chemistry has a wealth of NMR, IR, UV and MS facilities, the more pertinent are reviewed below:

Chemistry: Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Facilities

NMR Spectrometers:

• Varian UNITY INOVA 400
• Bruker AVANCE 300
• Bruker DSX 300 Widebore

Chemistry: Mass Spectrometry Facilities:

• Mass Spectrometers
• Bruker Microflex Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometer
• Bruker Autoflex3 Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization-Time of Flight Mass Spectrometer (MALDI-TOF MS)

This is a critical piece of instrumentation for our research group. The mass resolution enables not only molecular weight determination, (Mn, Mw and PDI), but also detailed characterization that enables the monitoring of end group modifications and repeat unit functionalization.

Group Resources:

Size Exclusion/Gel Permeation Chromatography:

• Waters Organic Phase GPC. The group maintains a Waters GPC system using THF as eluent fitted with refractometer and UV detectors. The system is calibrated against polystyrene standards and can provide accurate determination of hydrodynamic radius and polydispersity of most non-polar polymers.
• Waters Aqueous Phase GPC. An aqueous GPC system is presently being acquired and should be installed shortly for the characterization of polar polymers.

Collaborative Resources:

Tulane Center for Polymer Reaction Monitoring and Characterization: PolyRMC
Director Prof. Wayne Reed: Department of Physics

PolyRMC offers state-of-the-art, real-time analysis of polymer reaction using “ACOMP” to enable fundamental understanding and control of polymerization reactions.

Tulane Institute for Macromolecular Engineering and Science.
Director: Prof. Daniel DeKee: Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

TIMES provides a diversity of polymer characterization tools for affiliated researchers including:

Thermal Analysis:

• TA Instruments TGA 2950 Thermogravimetric Analyzer/Pfeiffer Thermostar Mass Spectrometer
• TA Instruments DSC2920 Differential Scanning Calorimeter

Mechanical Analysis:

• TA Instruments TMA2940 Thermomechanical Analyzer
• TA Instruments DMA 2980 Dynamic Mechanical Analyzer

Polymer Rheology:

• TA Instruments AR 2000 Rheometer

Tulane Microscopy Laboratory:

The Tulane Microscopy lab is a shared resource for researchers at Tulane’s uptown campus.

Scanning Electron Microscopy:

• Hitachi 3400 Environmental SEM
• Hitachi 4800 High-resolution SEM

Transmission Electron Microscopy

• JEOL 2010 Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope

Fluorescence Microscopy:

• Scanalytics® CellScan™ System

Multi-photon Laser Scanning Microscopy

• Zeiss LSM 510