WKU News

Ogden College received a $304,487 award for the acquisition of a 400 MHz Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) instrument to be housed in the Department of Chemistry.  Five chemistry faculty members (Kevin Williams, Les Pesterfield, Rui Zhang, Yongming Deng, and Larry Hill) and their research students will be the primary users of the instrument.  This instrument will replace a ~15-year old NMR instrument that has been used for ~10-15 hours a week during the average academic year and ~20-30 hours a week during the summers.  The instrument has a variety of uses, including identifying and characterizing newly created compounds and also observing reactions as they are occurring.

The new instrument will feature an autosampler that will enable users to run samples overnight or on the weekends as needed.  We will also use the instrument in partnership with local high school chemistry teachers; these teachers will have their students synthesize aspirin in their chemistry laboratory and will submit samples to be checked for purity analysis via the new instrument. 

Photo: (L-R): Rui Zhang, Les Pesterfield, Kevin Williams, Larry Hill & Yongming Deng