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

本项目将为劳伦斯大学化学系购买一套气相色谱仪/质谱仪（GC/MS）系统。化学系致力于课程改革，将：(a)扩大使用开放性的、学生驱动的、解决实际问题的实验室项目；B)增加天然产物、生物相关化合物和环境样品的使用，作为实验室中此类问题的重点；(c)继续向小规模实验室操作过渡。气相色谱/质谱仪将通过增强系里的分析能力，极大地扩展学生可以检测、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有关反应产物的重要新（质谱）数据，来进一步推进这些改革。因此，分析化学和仪器分析专业的学生将开展涉及环境样本（地表水或食品上的农药）的项目，其中感兴趣的物质浓度太低，无法用现有技术进行量化和识别。有机化学实验室的学生，其中许多不是化学专业的学生，但对生命科学非常感兴趣，他们将把这些技术和反应应用于更多有直接生物学或生物化学意义的化合物，因为该仪器可以更好地分离、鉴定和定量相对复杂的物质。一门新的环境化学课程将广泛使用该仪器研究当地一个严重污染的湖泊，向当地社区提供有关该问题的重要新数据。此外，该仪器将拓宽劳伦斯大学学生的本科研究项目范围。受该仪器影响最大的课程每年招收50至70名学生，所有学生都将反复使用该仪器。

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.