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Laboratories
Nanocatalysis and Advanced Energy Materials Laboratories
STC Rooms 137/138/226
Clean energy technology research aimed at the development of new nanocatalysts and sorbents for fuel cell- grade hydrogen production and the prevention of air pollution is undertaken in these labs. The labs house four fully-equipped microreactor assemblies for catalyst testing; two on-line mass spectrometers, several fume hoods, a rotary evaporator, a vacuum oven, muffle furnaces, and apparatus for materials synthesis. There is also a bench-scale (2.5” I.D.) reactor system with electric furnace, and a steam generator, fully equipped for testing ceramic monoliths up to 1000 °C. The following analytical instruments are routinely used in these labs for solid and gas analyses:
- CAHN-113X and CAHN 121 thermogravimetric analyzers (TGA). Accessories include a furnace with motorized mounting assembly and sample view port, temperature controller, mass flow controllers, and data analysis software.
- Hewlett Packard-5890, 6890, and 5880A gas chromatographs, equipped with thermal conductivity, flame ionization, and flame photometric detectors, automatic gas sampling valves, one 10-port manual gas sampling valve, and integrators.
- Micrometrics Pulse Chemisorption 2705 instrument for BET surface area and pore volume measurement, chemisorption, and for TPR, TPD and TPO analysis.
- Beckman 951 NO/NOx chemiluminescence analyzer.
- MKS-PPT-200 EM Quadrupole RGA System with mobile turbomolecular pump and variable high pressure inlet manifold to interface with TGA or reactor exit gas lines.
- Mattson R/S – 1 FTIR spectrometer for gas analysis including a TGA connecting kit.
- Hewlett Packard 8453A diode array UV-visible spectrophotometer.
- Harrick diffuse reflectance DRA – 3 high/low pressure reaction chamber for use with the UV-VIS spectrophometer at temperatures up to 600 °C.
- Ametek UV-VIS spectrometer for on-line H2S and SO2 gas analysis
M. Flytzani-Stephanopoulos
Biotechnology Laboratories
Cell and Tissue Culture Laboratories (Science & Technology Center Building, jointly run with Department of Biomedical Engineering, Rooms 283, 285, 286) For maintaining, growth and study of mammalian cell lines, tissue culture and tissue engineering and related needs. Facilities include carbon dioxide incubators, biosafety cabinets, microscopes.
Molecular Biology Laboratories (Science & Technology Center Building, jointly run with Department of Biomedical Engineering, Rooms 157, 162, 164) PCR machines to perform DNA amplification, analysis, and purification, protein purification and characterization, SDS-PAGE electrophoresis, chromatography, HPLC.
Machine Shop
The machine shop is set up on the lower level of the Science and Technology Center for students and faculty to use in the setup and maintenance of the many laboratories located in this building. Manual and computer controlled machines are operated by authorized personnel only. There is also a 17,000 sq. ft. proto manufacturing and assembly space, and the capability to do tig, mig and stick welding.
L. McMaster
Unit Operations Laboratory
This laboratory introduces students to basic concepts, experimental techniques and calculation procedures in unit operations. Current experiments include:
- Fluid dynamics
- Heat exchange (two pilot-scale units designed to study air- solid, steam-water, water-water heat transfer)
- Ultrafiltration of hemoglobin solutions in water
- Chemical reactions (two units designed to study stoichiometry and kinetics of batch reactions in the liquid phase)
- Drying of solid materials and distillation.
Instrumentation Laboratories 1, 2, 3
This is a central facility for the LMI and Tufts community, providing various analytical instruments for materials research.
Instrumentation Laboratory 1 has four major instrumentations which include: (i) Nicolet 740 Infrared Spectrophotometer, (ii) Perkin-Elmer Lamda 6 UV-Vis Spectrophotometer, (iii) Fiberoptic Fluorescence Spectrophotometer, (iv) surface characterization equipment, including Rame-Hart contact angle goniometer, optical microscope and friction coefficient measurement devices.
Instrumentation Laboratory 2 is equipped with three major instruments including (I) an Instron model 1120 testing machine, (ii) a Nicolet thin-film x-ray diffractometer, and (iii) a Perkin-Elmer DSC-4 differential scanning carlorimeter and a TGA-4, thermogravimetric analyzer.
Instrumentation Laboratory 3 is houses one fiberoptic luminescent spectrophotometer (Photon Tech. International). This lab is dedicated to the study of in-situ monitoring of chemical reaction in various polymeric systems, such as epoxy and polyurethane.
N. Sung
Pollution Prevention Projects Laboratory
SciTech Center, Room 226
The Pollution Prevention Projects lab was inaugurated in May 1998. Its construction was made possible through the generosity of alumni Omar Abboud, Jordan Birger, John Ghublikian, and John Roberts, and the Merrill Lynch Corporation.
This state-of-the-art 1550 sq. ft. facility is a teaching and research laboratory in environmental applications of chemical engineering, providing opportunities for postgraduate research and unique educational experiences to undergraduates interested in hands-on training. Current post-graduate and undergraduate research in this lab focuses on environmental catalysis, specifically new catalysts for fuel processing to generate hydrogen for fuel cell applications. As an industrial projects laboratory, this lab exemplifies to senior engineering students integration in problem solving and enhances their capstone design course experience.
Recent projects undertaken in this lab by the seniors are as follows:
- Performance Analysis of the Catalytic Converter in a Turbochef Oven (Turbochef Technologies)
- Slow-Release Fertilizer Granules (Thermo Fibergen, Inc.)
- Copper Extraction from Wastewater by a Liquid Membrane (Sepracor, Coresep)
- Automotive Exhaust Oxygen Sensor
The Chemical & Biological Engineering Department welcomes the opportunity to collaborate with industry and alumni on pollution prevention projects that can be carried out in the lab. Please contact Professor Maria Flytzani -Stephanopoulos for further information.
Core Facilities for Physical Characterization
Keck Biomimetic Materials Lab Room 285
- Bruker Proflex laser desorption fourier transform mass spectrometer – molecular weight determination of oligomeric and polymeric molecules, chemical analysis, limited peptide sequencing. Multiple sample capability.
- Bruker Equinox 55 Fourier transform infrared spectrometer with Raman and FTIR microscope attachments. Special cells for - small sample liquid ATR with temperature control (heating and cooling) and multiple crystal types; diffuse scattering FTIR; solid film ATR; reflection FTIR; also a standard solid sample holder. Microscope operates in transmission and reflection; fast scan modes are available for dynamic experiments, computer controlled with a macro language available. Useful for chemical structure, macromolecule conformation, adsorption experiments.
- Molecular Solutions Dynamic and static light scattering. Single angle dynamic light scattering for molecular hydrodynamic volume measurements which can be used with a model to determine molecular weight and shape. Single angle static light scattering measurements can be used to generate Zimm plots for accurate direct molecular weight determination (no model needed). Useful for tracking dimmer, trimer, and multimerization of macromolecules into complexes, obtaining critical micelle concentration for small micelles, and tracking the hydrodynamic behavior of macromolecules. Temperature controlled 0 – 80 C.
- Hitachi F-4500 fluorescence spectrophotometer. Capable of measurements on specimens, gel and plate reading. Temperature control (heating and cooling). Also called a fluoroimager. Useful for quantitative fluorescence measurements.
- Jasco CD spectrometer – temperature controlled CD measurements, 0-100 C.
- Nikon Type 120 polarizing optical microscope with ¼ wave plate. 10x, 20x, 40x, 60x objectives. 35 mm camera. Useful for qualitative assessment of molecular alignment, identification of liquid crystalline phases, optical crystallography, fiber analysis, qualitative crystallinity assessment.
Imaging Facility Room 119
- Philips Electroscan Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope “ESEM Explorer”. Can be operated as a conventional SEM under high vacuum. Hot/cold bath/recirculator with peristaltic pump for coarse temperature control, peltier fine temperature control. Operated as an ESEM, resolutions of ~50 nm can be obtained on uncoated non-porous specimens at 20 kV and 7 Torr. Ideal operating voltage (optimum for microscope optics) is 30 kV, reasonable data have been obtained down to 7 kV. Lower voltages yield more surface and thin film information but lower spatial resolution. Higher pressures prevent dehydration, amplify signal, and reduce specimen charging, but again result in lower resolution. Polaroid camera. Computer image capture pending.
- Digital Nanoscope Atomic Force Microscope. Atomic force microscopy in contact mode, tapping mode, friction force mode, non-contact and non-contact tapping, magnetic force microscopy, liquid cell. Useful for obtaining an image of a samples surface topography (10 – 100 nm real resolution depending on tip type for most samples). Friction force measurements and tapping mode phase maps (viscoelasticity) can be used to map surface mechanical properties directly and chemical properties indirectly. Wet specimens can be imaged using the liquids cell. Atomic resolution can be obtained on flat hard crystalline solids, but the mechanism of image formation is not well established.
Other locations:
- Biorad imaging system. Fluor –S multi imager and GS 525 Molecular imager. Chemiluminescent imaging, radioisotope imaging, scanning and epi modes, white light, UV, various filters, phosphor imager with different plates. Limited software for contrast enhancement when converting 16 bit imager files into 8 bit tiff bitmaps. Optical density quantification software designed and optimized for analysis of gels. Rm 157
- Zeiss 110 Inverted Epifluorescence microscope. Digital image capture capability (color) using a SONY hyperhat grabber. Rm 283
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