IMS Industrial Affiliates Program Continues Its Support of Industry Partners from the Institute of Materials Science
As operations returned to a “new normal” the IMS Industrial Affiliates Program has continued to provide vital materials analysis and characterization services for our members and non-member industry partners. Our monthly webinars over the 2020-2021 academic year were very popular, attracting an average of 50 people to each 2-hour webinar. During 2021-2022 we are planning webinars to run bi-monthly. We kicked off the semester in October with Prof. Lesley Frame discussing Metallurgical Analyses. Look for announcements for our other webinars over the next few months. Several new and diverse companies have joined IAP including a producer of bio-based lubricants, a producer of cleaning equipment for medical devices, and a third company that recycles fluoropolymers. IAP has continued to engage faculty in a robust way over the past year, and we believe the experience has been mutually beneficial for our industry partners, our faculty researchers, and IMS. Some examples include catalyst and surface chemistry work by the Suib group; polymer processing and failure analysis by Luyi Sun’s lab; metallographic analysis and corrosion by Lesley Frame; polymer crystallinity and morphology by Mu-Ping Nieh’s lab; nano-indentation by Seok-Woo Lee’s group; and AFM by the Huey group. New equipment has become available, adding to our ability to assist our partners with their characterization needs. We now have access to the following equipment: Atomic Absorption: IMS received a PerkinElmer Atomic Absorption Spectrometer AAnalyst 200 (pictured) that will allow students and industry projects involving metal concentrations in solution to be run in-house. The AAnalyst 200 has many features that www.ims.uconn.edu
allow for optimization of instrument sensitivity, leading to improved detection limits. Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GCMS): IMS purchased a new Agilent 8890 GC & 5975 MS (pictured left) that will shorten the timelines for the growing number of industry projects, while serving students and researchers at UConn. The new system also has several built-in self-diagnostic tools to aid in rapid troubleshooting of the instrument, and it comes with a liquid autosampler. Analytes for GCMS must have molecular weight <1000 Dalton, high vapor pressure, low polarity, and (usually) must be non-aqueous.
Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (LCMS): The addition of Shimadzu MS-2020 EV (pictured left) to the IMS Core Labs will increase the range of samples, allowing analysis of medium to high polarity aqueous systems and those prone to thermal degradation. The system has a dual ion source, permitting both ionization modes: electrospray for high-polarity compounds, and atmospheric pressure chemical for lower-polarity compounds. This mass spectrometer has an approximate range of 0-2000 m/z. It also allows a single sample to be run with both positive and negative ion mode, with fast scanning of 15000 u/sec.
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