Bulletin

Issue: September 2005

News

Analysing chemicals with the latest equipment

Two Year 12 pupils from Northcote High School are receiving a study opportunity rare for students of their age.

Katrina Mullumby and Mohamed Owynat are spending time each week in the Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy laboratory of Professor Bob Brownlee in La Trobe University's Department of Chemistry.

They have been fully trained to operate the newly acquired Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectrometer and to interpret the images obtained, known as spectra, to derive structural information about, and confirm the identity of, compounds synthesised in the department.

Ms Mullumby and Mr Owynat operate the spectrometer purchased recently through an Australian Research Council Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities grant to the department. The state-of-the-art equipment, called the Bruker Avance 300 MHz spectrometer, is based on an extremely powerful superconducting magnet and is used in the department to identify molecules through their distinctive resonance signature.

Professor Brownlee says that confirmation of structure is vital in any project in medicinal, synthetic or analytical chemistry, and the Year 12 students use the wide range of advanced experiments necessary for structural identification.

Professor Brownlee and Ms Soula Bennett, Science Coordinator at Northcote High School, have developed a program to involve senior students in advanced techniques used in chemistry.

'The idea is to involve them in the real world of chemistry. Many students have a picture of chemists working in white coats in a laboratory with test tubes. This project aims to update this image and to illustrate the wide diversity and interests of chemistry today,' Professor Brownlee said.