You are given extensive use of a wide array of state-of-the-art analytical equipment throughout your time at RGU. There are duplications of many of the analytical instrumentation allowing you to get exposure to all the equipment available and gain as much hands-on experience as possible.
The variety of equipment gives you the opportunity to investigate a diverse range of topics. Past projects have included looking into the kinds of agrochemicals Scottish honeybees are exposed to, analysing seized ecstasy tablets in order to attempt to profile common formulations and investigating the development of novel corrosion inhibitors for a range of metal substrates.
The instrumentation on offer in the Analytical Science Laboratory includes:
- Gas chromatography - flame ionisation detection (GC-FID),
- Gas chromatography - mass spectrometry (GC-MS),
- Thermal desorption - cold trap GC-MS (TD-CT-GC-MS),
- Pyrolysis GC-FID (Pyr GC-FID),
- Capillary Electrophoresis (CE), Fluorescence Spectrophotometers & UV-Vis Spectrophotometers,
- High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), with diode array (DAD) and fluorescence (FD) detection,
- Liquid chromatography - mass spectrometry (LC-MS),
- Liquid chromatography - tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS-MS),
- Inductively coupled plasma - atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES),
- Ion-chromatography and Ion Selective Electrodes (ISE),
- Potentiometry,
- Fourier transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR),
- Rheometry, texture analysis, nano-sizer and particle size analysis, hot-stage microscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR),
- We also have an impressive range of sample preparation techniques: freeze drying, solid-phase extraction (SPE), microwave assisted extraction, accelerated solvent extraction (ASE) and solid phase microextraction (SPME).