UV-visible absorption spectrometer

刘博士的团队制造了各种类型的聚合物和聚合物/无机纳米结构，并探索了它们在医疗诊断、化妆品、微电子和润滑方面的应用。其中许多纳米结构的制备涉及聚合物反应。跟踪此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，在刘博士的实验室里，这项工作是由他8年前从另一名教员那里继承来的旧UV-VIS完成的。自2006年初以来，这台仪器一直出现故障，大约一天两次在测量过程中冻结。一个人必须关闭整个系统并再次预热。然后是参考测量。整个过程大约需要30分钟。由于这种情况发生得如此频繁，现在使用该仪器对他的小组成员来说是一种令人沮丧的经历。当学生在进行化学动力学实验时，这种故障变得特别恼人，因为它可能导致完整的实验重新运行，以及大量的时间和试剂浪费。此外，该仪器还需要经常维修。这里要求更换过时的系统，以跟踪聚合物反应并支持正在进行的其他研究活动在他的团队中。他说，更新后的仪器将有助于熟悉和培训学生和博士后研究员使用一种更有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.