Grant Secures Major Scientific Equipment for New Florida Tech Building

– Florida Tech has earned a National Science Foundation grant of $290,000 to purchase a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer (NMR). The university’s
previous system has been the most heavily used piece of equipment in the chemistry department for both teaching and research.
The NMR helps to determine the chemical structure of many molecules important in organic synthesis, medicinal chemistry, natural products and bio-organic
chemistry as well as other areas of interest. “We hope it is the first in a series of new NMR and mass spectrometry equipment for our new chemical
instrumentation center,” said Dr. Michael Babich, professor and head of the Department of Chemistry. The NMR will support the organic research of several
professors.
Although Babich is the principal investigator on the grant, he credits Dr. Alan Brown with persistence and dedication in securing the funding to purchase
the instrument. Brown supervises the university’s high field NMR facility, which currently has a 360Mhz superconducting magnet.
The new instrument will be the third of what Babich hopes will soon be four NMRs. “We are seeking a high field system with a 600Mhz superconducting magnet.
These instruments are the essential workhorses that allow us to attract such funding as the $3 million in external contracts we currently work under,” he
said. “We couldn’t do 90 percent of our work without them.”