Greg Van Patten

Greg.VanPatten@mtsu.edu

Greg Van Patten

Chemistry

Discipline specific equipment

SCI 3101 and SCI 3104

N/A

N/A

The Department of Chemistry requests a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer and a liquid chromatograph to enable both GC/MS and LC/MS/MS instrumentation to be added and used for several upper-division courses that serve the majors of Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Forensic Science. GC/MS and LC/MS/MS are sensitive, state-of-the-art techniques commonly used for chemical and biochemical analysis in industrial, research, and government laboratories. MS/MS is the gold standard for a number of different types of forensic analysis, and the GC and LC allow for sampling of a wide variety of samples types, both in both liquid and gas states. A scroll pump is requested to enable us to reinstate an existing, modern MS/MS in the department for use with the requested LC unit. We currently have 1 GC/MS in the department, but it is heavily used and does not have the sampling capabilities of the requested unit, which will expand its usability by enabling much faster sample processing. Right now we are limited in numbers of students who can use the instrument due to the time required for each particular analysis to run. If this proposal is awarded, many UG (and grad) students will get hands-on access to both of these instruments through required and elective upper-division course work. The courses that will be primarily affected by both of these acquisitions are listed below with a description of historical and anticipated student enrollment demand. CHEM 4231 Instrumental Analysis: 28 students, Spring 2017-2021 CHEM 6231 Intermediate Analyical Chemistry: 44 students, Spring 2017-2021 CHEM 4530 Biochemical Techniques: 42 students, Spring 2017-2021. This number will increase dramatically as we plan to make this course a requirement for all our 256 Biochemistry Majors. FSCH 4231 Instrumental Analysis for Forensic Chemistry: 46 students, Spring 2017-2021. This program is growing and is currently under review for accreditation. FSCH 4231 is a required course for this program which currently enrolls 181 students total.