NMR Facility Adds New Spectrometer

2017-07-19

Writer(s): Steve Scherer

The Purdue Interdepartmental NMR Facility (PINMRF) has added a new spectrometer. The Bruker AV-III-400-HD NMR spectrometer is located in WTHR 369.

The spectrometer has higher sensitivity and better resolution than the old equipment and modern hardware that did not exist on the old machine.

“These two factors mean that for many NMR experiments, such as 13C observation and 2D data acquisition, the new spectrometer can acquire data in 1/2 to 1/10th of the time the old machine required, and the data are better-quality,” explained John Harwood, PINMRF director.

The new spectrometer has a broadband probe which allows for the observation of many more NMR-active nuclei, including (but not limited to) 2H, 11B, 15N, 17O, 29Si, 77Se, 119Sn, etc.  The new instrument also has a sophisticated and a fully integrated sample-temperature control system that the old equipment lacked.

The new system replaces a mid-1990s vintage Bruker ARX-400 NMR spectrometer that was donated to PINMRF by Eli Lilly in the early 2000s. 

“After I started my job here as director of PINMRF in 2005, Jerry Hirschinger and I renovated WTHR 369 and installed this spectrometer ourselves. Therefore, we got a dozen years of usage from a donated machine, and we are still using its magnet with the new hardware,” added Harwood.

The new spectrometer is open to all PINMRF users. It runs Bruker’s TopSpin software, version 3.2. PINMRF users who are already qualified to operate the PINMRF TopSpin spectrometers may use the new spectrometer right away.

The Office of the Executive Vice President for Research (EVPRP) Major Multiuser Research Equipment Program provided two-thirds of the funding for the new system. The other one-third matching funds came from Chemistry, the College of Science, and other entities on campus.