Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Instrument for Materials Characterization

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The purpose of this grant is to provide three researchers (one early-career researcher and two established researchers) of the Department of Chemistry at Université Laval involved in the synthesis and characterization of organic materials with an Electron paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) instrument. There is an immediate need to obtain this instrument since there is no EPR facility in the Department of Chemistry or even on the campus. The samples need to be sent across the country for analysis, which is impossible for most of the them because of the instability of the radical-containing molecules. To generate high-quality results, students and postdocs have to travel with their samples, make the sample preparation on-site and do the analysis. This situation impedes the progression of many projects tremendously and results in unnecessary time and money loss. The EPR is not just an elegant method to get fancy results, but is necessary for the PIs since it allows the characterization of molecules that are the centerpieces of various projects in both PIs' lab. These molecules include conjugated oligomers and polymers, nanographenes, and graphene nanoribbons having an open--shell (diradical) character or bearing a formal radical. This EPR system will support the state--of--the--art and innovative research programs of more than 30 scientists (students, PDFs and research associates) involved in various areas of chemistry, including materials, organic and inorganic chemistry. This instrument will be made available to all others graduate students and postdocs of the Department of Chemistry (150 researchers). Having this instrument is also very important for the training of HQP and for their future career in materials--related areas.