Critical Replacement of Inoperative NIR-Visible and FT-IR Spectrometers

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We are a diverse team of researchers, including synthetic chemists and engineers, representative of the gender, ethnic, and cultural composition of the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of Guelph. We are brought together by our common need for analytical equipment to support our many research endeavours. These endeavours span a wide range of fields, including catalytic conversion of waste biomass into high-value products, development of new food processing technologies, design of molecular materials with quantum computing properties, investigation of new chemical designs with possible medicinal properties, and creation of optical probes for nucleic acid detection. We are united by our common need for a research-grade spectrometer that functions in the infrared (IR), near-IR, and visible region, that allows flexibility of sample and experiment design, and that will give our students a marketable skill.*** The instrument we plan to purchase is designed to replace two old instruments that recently broke and cannot be repaired due to obsolescence. The defunct equipment served us well for 16 and 24 years, and we expect the newly purchased equipment to last a long time and contribute to the training of competitive highly qualified personnel (HQP). Furthermore, we expect the sharing of this equipment to act as a hub, nucleating new collaborative research directions and providing a networking opportunity for our HQP. We expect that increased interaction between HQP from various disciplines will encourage increased awareness of diversity, with domestic and international students from a wide range of ethnic and religious backgrounds working together. *** The research supported by the requested equipment is of value to Canadians in several ways. It will help to decrease our dependence on coal, oil, and gas as starting materials for high-value industrial precursors (e.g., for nylon manufacturing). It will help increase food safety and decrease waste in the food processing sector. Development of new technologies, such as quantum computing, smart materials for safety applications, and DNA-sensors for medical applications will be accelerated. The discovery of unprecedented medicinal compounds will be supported.**