Greg Van Patten

Greg.VanPatten@mtsu.edu

Greg Van Patten

Chemistry

Discipline specific equipment

SCI 3101

N/A

N/A

The Chemistry Department seeks to purchase a new gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer (GC/MS). The new GC/MS is needed to support the laboratory instruction of not only CHEM 4231/6231 and FSCH 4231 students, but also the research and thesis projects of CHEM 3880/4880/6640 students. There is a 2-3 week period every spring semester that the existing GC/MS instrument is unavailable for student research and thesis projects because of the intensive use by 25-30 students who perform their coursework experiments individually for 3-5 hours per student. At other times of the year, the instrument stays in heavy use for students doing research and thesis projects. Furthermore, the existing instrument does not have capabilities for solid phase micro extraction and headspace analysis that are important for our ACS-certified Chemistry and Forensic Science programs. The acquisition of a new GC/MS will also allow us to avoid the sample contamination issue, which has adversely affected our ability to publish scholarly articles or submit competitive grant proposals, by designating the new GC/MS for CHEM 3880/4880/6640 and the existing GC/MS for CHEM 4231/4261 and FSCH 4231. The approximate number of students and projects impacted by this instrument each year would be: CHEM 6231 and CHEM/FSCH 4231: 20-30 students/year CHEM 2880/3880/4880: 10-15 students per year CHEM 6640: 8-12 students per year Faculty research groups or thesis dissertation projects: 9 groups and 12-15 projects per year.