UV-visible absorption spectrometer

刘博士的团队制造各种类型的聚合物和聚合物/无机纳米结构，并探索其在医疗诊断，化妆品，微电子和润滑方面的应用。许多纳米结构的制备涉及聚合物反应。跟踪这类化学反应发生的有效方法是使用紫外-可见吸收光谱仪（UV-Vis）。目前，刘博士的实验室使用的是一台老式UV-Vis，这台仪器是他8年前从另一位教员那里继承来的。自2006年初以来，这台仪器一直出现故障，每天大约两次在测量过程中冻结。当这种情况发生时，人们必须关闭整个系统并再次加热它。接下来是参考测量。整个过程大约需要30分钟。由于这种情况经常发生，使用乐器对他的小组成员来说现在是一种令人沮丧的经历。当学生正在进行化学动力学实验时，这种故障变得尤其令人讨厌，因为它可能导致完整的实验重新进行，并浪费大量的时间和试剂。仪器也需要经常维修。这里需要的是一个过时的系统的替代品，以跟踪聚合物反应并支持他的小组正在进行的其他研究活动。更新后的仪器将有助于学生和博士后熟悉和培训更可能在其他学术或工业化学实验室中找到的模型。

Dr. Liu's group makes polymer and polymer/inorganic nanostructures of various types and explores their applications in medical diagnostics, cosmetics, microelectronics, and lubrication.  The preparation of many of these nanostructures involves polymer reactions.  An efficient way to follow the occurrence of such chemical reactions is to use a UV-Visible absorption spectrometer (UV-Vis).  This is currently done in Dr. Liu's lab by an old UV-Vis, which he inherited from another faculty member 8 years ago.  Since early 2006 this instrument has been malfunctioning and freezes about twice a day in the middle of a measurement.  When this happens, one has to shut sown the whole system and warm it up again.  This is then followed by reference measurement.  The whole process takes about 30 minutes.  Since this happens so often using the instrument is now a frustrating experience to his group members.  This malfunctioning becomes especially annoying when a student is in the middle of a chemical kinetic experiment because it may lead to complete experiment rerun and significant time and reagent waste.  The instrument also needs frequent servicing.  Requested here is a replacement for the obsolete system to follow polymer reactions and support other research activities on-going in his group.  The updated instrument will help familiarize and train students and post-doctoral fellows with a model that is more likely to be found in other academic or industrial chemical laboratories.