Exploring the Evolving Universe

Laboratory Facilities

IIRMES comprises five contiguous laboratories covering some 2,800sq. ft. of space housed in the basement of Peterson Hall 3 (PH3) within the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.  The majority of the capital instrumentation is localized within this central facility, which promotes their effective utilization and enhances cross-disciplinary collaboration.

The main wet laboratory contains much of the equipment necessary for wet bench-work involving sample preparation and analysis.   The facility is equipped with three fume hoods and two Barnstead Nanopure™ reagent water systems for the production of 18 megohm ultra-pure water free of trace metal contamination and pyrogens.  The laboratory is also equipped with instrumentation for SDS-PAGE and TLC, various homogenizers, a UV-visible spectrophotometer, a lyophilizer, low and medium speed centrifuges and auxiliary equipment such as pH meters and balances. Two Lab-Line environmental chambers with full sub-ambient temperature control are available for maintaining animals and cells in radioactive media.

 

The ICP-MS room houses two ICP-MS instruments; a TOF ICP-MS and a Perkin Elmer™ 6100 DRC, dual quadrupole ICP-MS with hydride generation facility and a flow injection analysis system.  There is a NewWave 203LUV laser Ablation system for the analysis of solid materials.  The room was designed specifically to meet class 1000 specifications and to be metal free.  It covers an area of 450 sq. ft, which is divided into 3 functional areas: an air locked vestibule; the instrument area; and the wet laboratory.  All flooring is composed of a hermetically seam-sealed, chemically resistant, polymer. The wet preparation section has a number of Teflon coated benches.  The IPCP-MS facility is provided with ultrapure water from a Barnes water system that receives house water that has been purified by reverse osmosis.  A quartz still, located in a Teflon-lined chemical hood, is available for redistillation of mineral acids. An additional laminar flow hood is available for sample preparation.  Two benches are mobile and are designated for sample preparation and transportation to the instrument. 

 

The third laboratory is dedicated to organic analysis and houses a HP-VG Trio GC-MS. Ancillary equipment for the rotor evaporation and microwave digestion of samples are also located in the fume hood in this laboratory.  A heavy duty, industrial type, -80^oC freezers with liquid CO₂ backup and a chest style –20^oC refrigerator together with 3 conventional refrigerators are located in this laboratory for sample storage.  An ancillary laboratory is used primarily for radioisotope studies and houses a Beckman™ liquid scintillation counter and a LKB CompuGamma™ counter with the ability to deconvolute 4 isotopic channels.  Other equipment available outside of the laboratory include a Beckman ultracentrifuge, a cell culture facility with a sub-ambient CO₂, humidity and temperature controlled Forma Scientific incubator, inverted scopes and laminar-flow hoods.  Other equipment available for use include a Beckman DU-640B UV/Vis spectrophotometer, Savant Speed-Vac System with cryovacuum capabilities, Pharmacia FPLC protein separation system, northern blotting apparatus, PCR thermo-recyclers and automated DNA sequencing systems.  Other equipment available to IIRMES includes a JEOL™ 1200EXII transmission electron microscope with a CCD camera. 

 

The final laboratory houses the FEI ESEM and TLC Instrumentation.  This laboratory has recently been renovated and has an ancillary dark room and an Information Technology Transfer Office designated for computing and electronic media and data storage.

 

In addition to the four major laboratories, IIRMES also has a Stable Isotope Laboratory. This facility, located on the second floor of the PH3 building is used for sample preparation and gas extraction.  The facility has been developed by Dr. Holk, in the Department of Geological Sciences using start-up funds from the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics and equipment donations from the California Institute of Technology. This laboratory includes the Finnegan MAT Delta-XP Light element Mass Spectrometer and (i) A vacuum line that uses fluorine gas to extract oxygen from silicate materials for oxygen isotope analysis; (ii) A vacuum line that provides for the extraction of carbon dioxide from carbonate materials for carbon and oxygen isotope analysis; (iii) An oxygen isotope extraction line for the analysis of the oxygen isotopic composition of water.

The facility also has recently established a luminescence lab for the dating of ceramics, lithics, and sediments. Luminescence dating is a rapidly expanding field. The advantage luminescence dating has over other techniques is the ability to date directly events of archaeological and geological interest: the last heating of ceramics and lithics and the last exposure of light for sediments. This often eliminates the need for associational arguments and the uncalibrated loss of accuracy involved therein. Equipment installed for TL analysis includes a state-of-the-art Risø TL/OSL-DA-15 combined TL/OSL reader. The TL/OSL-DA-15 unit is fully automated unit with 48-sample capacity. In addition, to the luminescence reader, the facility operates a calibrated Sr-90 source.