Facilities & Instrumentation

The facilities and instrumentation in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at DU provide direct hands-on access to state-of-the-art equipment and our size allows for extensive hands-on experience. Much of our instrumentation is shared by all researchers in the department including NMR, absorption and fluorescence spectrophotometers, mass spectrometers, laser scanning confocal microscopes, and more. 

Instrumentation Overview

Research groups also have a wide range of instrumentation in their lab which are specialized to specific research projects (TIRF microscope, Q-Exactive Orbitrap HRMS, FT-IR, Rheometer, ICP-MS), custom built (numerous EPR spectrometers, aerosol characterization instrumentation), or simply heavily used by a single research group (gloveboxes, spectrophotometers, FPLCs, HPLCs).

We are constantly working to acquire new cutting-edge or enabling instrumentation. Exciting highlights of new instrumentation in our department include an Edinburgh Instruments FS5 Fluorometer with an integrating sphere for absolute determination of fluorescence quantum yield and a new ICP-OES system. 

In the next year we will take delivery of a new 3-channel Bruker 600 MHz NMR with a Prodigy cryoprobe system thanks to a recent award from the Major Research Instrumentation Program (NSF) - Equipment: MRI: Track 1 Acquisition of a 600 MHz NMR with Cryoprobe for the Greater Rocky Mountain Region, DBI-2320158.

The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry is also proud of our responsible stewardship of precious He resources. We capture, compress, purify and reliquefy the evaporated He required for NMR magnets.