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Trinity University buys $500,000 scientific instrument


San Antonio Business Journal


Trinity University is installing a new high-dollar nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer on campus that will help students and faculty to conduct the same caliber of scientific research as some of the larger schools in the country.

A nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer is used to learn how molecules function and relate to each other.

Trinity records show that the $498,000 500 megahertz spectrometer is now one of the most expensive pieces of scientific equipment ever bought by the university. The National Science Foundation contributed the money for the equipment using funds from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009.

Only five other primarily undergraduate schools in the country have received federal funding for similar equipment. The majority of schools with this caliber of equipment typically limit access to graduate and post-doctoral research associates. At Trinity, first-year students will use the spectrometer in their undergraduate research projects.

The equipment will be used by undergraduate students and faculty in the chemistry, geosciences and biology departments. Trinity will also make the equipment available to officials with other universities.

The new spectrometer replaces one bought by Trinity back in 1996, at the time with funding from the National Science Foundation and the Dreyfus Foundation. The new equipment is being installed during a three-week period in April and May.

The National Science Foundation also recently awarded Trinity $200,000 to buy two additional spectrometers. One is known as an inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometer, while the other uses X-ray fluorescence techniques. Chemistry professor Michelle Bushey says the two latter instruments will be in place by the fall semester.