Acquisition of a Gas Chromatograph - Mass Spectrometer (GC-MS) to Enhance Analytical Capability and Improve Analytical and Organic Chemistry Instruction at Lawrence

该项目将为劳伦斯大学化学系购买一台气相色谱仪/质谱仪(GC/MS)系统。化学系致力于课程改革，将(A)扩大开放式、学生主导的实验室项目的使用，以解决实际问题；(B)增加天然产品、生物相关化合物和环境样本的使用，作为实验室此类问题的焦点；以及(C)继续向较小规模的实验室操作过渡。GC/MS仪器将主要通过增强系的分析能力，极大地扩大学生可以检测、量化和识别有机物质的浓度范围，并使学生能够在与课程相关的实验室中获得关于反应产物的关键的新的(质谱学)数据，从而进一步推动这些改革。因此，分析化学和仪器分析专业的学生将开展涉及环境样品(地表水或食品上的农药)的项目，这些样品中感兴趣的物质的浓度太低，无法通过现有的技术进行量化和识别。有机化学实验室的学生中，许多人不是化学专业的，但对生命科学有浓厚的兴趣，他们将把技术和反应应用于更多具有直接生物或生化兴趣的化合物，因为该仪器将允许更好地分离、鉴定和量化相对复杂的物质。一门新的环境化学课程将广泛使用该仪器对当地一个污染严重的湖泊进行研究，为当地社区提供有关该问题的重要新数据。此外，该工具将拓宽劳伦斯学生可以接触到的本科生研究项目的范围。受这种乐器影响最大的课程每年招收50到70名学生，所有这些学生都将反复使用这种乐器。

This project will purchase a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer (GC/MS) system for the chemistry department at Lawrence University. The chemistry department is committed to curricular reforms that will (a) expand the use of open-ended, student-driven laboratory projects that address real problems; b) increase the use of natural products, biologically relevant compounds, and environmental samples as the focus of such problems in the laboratory; and (c) continue our transition to smaller-scale laboratory manipulations. The GC/MS instrument will further these reforms principally by enhancing the department's analytical capabilities, greatly extending the range of concentrations at which students can detect, quantify, and identify organic materials, and enabling students to obtain crucial new (mass spectral) data on reaction products in course-related laboratories. As a result students in Analytical Chemistry and Instrumental Analysis will carry out projects involving environmental samples (surface water or pesticides on food) in which substances of interest are present at concentrations too low to quantify and identify by currently available techniques. Students in the Organic Chemistry laboratory, many of whom are not chemistry majors but are strongly interested in life sciences, will apply the techniques and reactions to more compounds of direct biological or biochemical interest, because the instrument will permit better separation, identification, and quantification of relatively complex substances. A new Environmental Chemistry course will use the instrument extensively in studies of a local, heavily polluted lake, contributing important new data on that problem to the local community. In addition, the instrument will broaden the range of undergraduate research projects accessible to Lawrence students. The courses most affected by this instrument enroll 50 to 70 students per year, all of whom will have repeated hands-on experience with it.