Facilities: Hearsay on the Quality and Quantity of Instruments

[UBackwardsChemistry]

Ceteris Paribus one of the rate determining steps for progressing on a project is how often you get to use that one critical instrument. Be it NMR, MS, or X-ray there are those frustrating times when you have to just twiddle your thumbs in line while waiting to get a crucial piece of data. I, personally, would like to minimize this wait time by attending an institution where (ideally) intruments are effective and plentiful. To enable this: please post what you know about the facilities of schools you're familiar with!

[Quantum Buckyball]

I'd go for quantity...

It's nice to have high-end instruments but how many times would you actually get to use it? once/month...once/year...or never?

My department got a brand-new high-end MS last month, and they aren't even letting graduate students to use it. They hired professionals to run our samples instead.

[UBackwardsChemistry]

Does anyone know anything about the new chem buildings at Princeton and Caltech?

[oopalfrootz]

This is one of the most important things about a chem PhD! Remember to think about how many researchers there are in the building(s) compared to how many spectrometers or other machines. My current department has more NMR spectrometers, but more people - and you have to book two days ahead, as if anyone has any idea in org chem what they will really be doing in two days. There are also autosamplers, but it's not rare that the queue's over 14 hours. The place I worked over the summer, it was an annoyance when you rarely had to wait half an hour for a booking! Fewer spectrometers of roughly the same level, but shared between fewer people.

[UBackwardsChemistry]

Caltech's buildings (particularly the new one, Schlinger) appear to be very nice to do chemistry in. The hoods are spacious, bench space is decent and there is a new catalysis centre with a dedicated staff scientist to help set up automated reactions and GC/HPLC/UHPLC protocols. The NMR facility is heavily automated, meaning that you will probably have to wait for a bit to get your spectrum but, realistically, all you have to do is drop off your sample in the que (the manager of the facility also seemed super helpful) and pick it up later (instead of having to physically wait in line). I was impressed. Also, there is an awesome pond full of turtles which looks ideal for dissipating stress. I will certainly not be discounting this school based on its facilities.

[tangentc]

I'd go for quantity...

It's nice to have high-end instruments but how many times would you actually get to use it? once/month...once/year...or never?

My department got a brand-new high-end MS last month, and they aren't even letting graduate students to use it. They hired professionals to run our samples instead.

 

Having been on the receiving end of this I agree completely. At my school (or at least in my subfield) the issue is getting time on the TEM. We got this wonderful Titan microscope (and it is wonderful), but it's impossible to get time on the damn thing without signing up weeks in advance. We're fortunate to have a reasonably well-stocked user facility in general, but there is competition for use of one of the two SEMs available, especially when competing with industrial users for the FIB.

 

This concerned me a bit at UC Irvine when I visited. They are well-stocked with regard to SEMs, but I was concerned about their emphasis on EDS for elemental analysis. As far as I can tell they have no EPMA capabilities and while they supposedly do have XPS (which I prefer anyway), it has to be done through technicians. They did say that they had submitted a proposal for an XPS user facility, though. Between their two facilities they have a good number of xray diffractometers, though. I would like to see more than one single-crystal machine (I've seen a hell of a lot of papers get held up waiting for crystal structures), but that's a rarity and so it's hard to hold it against them.

 

UCSB is, unsurprisingly, extremely well stocked for just about any sort of materials characterization you could possibly need. Even have a large number of NMR probes in case you wanted to look at some usual nuclei.

[UBackwardsChemistry]

On UW-Madison:

-Labs can be kind of old (particularly in building 2) but the fumehoods are up to date and there's lots of benchspace. Shain tower labs are very nice. Grad student offices are SEPARATE from the labspace (big plus)
-chemicals typically arrive a day or two after ordered
-Probably the best crystallographic set up in the country (it helps that Bruker Crystallography is headquartered in Madison).
-A bunch of NMRs, frequently autosampled. The field and quality of probes for these instruments is also very impressive (prodigy probe, in particular, for lightning fast carbons). Additionally one can get access to 700+ mHz instruments in Biochem if needed
-Very decent common mass spec facility (many groups have their own instrumentation as well)
-the department is currently building a joint catalysis center (parallel reactors, pressure vessels etc)

Madison might actually have better instrumentation than Caltech!

[claisen]

Did anyone see the chemistry department and facilities at IU Bloomington?

[UBackwardsChemistry]

On Irvine,:

- the department is spread out over multiple buildings; the state of the labs is largely dependent on which of these you end up in (ranges from new, open concept with 8' hoods to old school cramped with 6' hoods). No matter where you are it seems that offices are NOT separate from the lab space.
-chemicals can take up to a week to get in
-I can't really comment on the crystallographic set up, but it sounds like it is at least passable
-only five NMRs (one cryoprobed) with a booking system...looks like waiting is a part of life for a department as large as Irvine
-Mass spec is fine, big selling point is that it is open 24/7 (Manager seems helpful, but no especially amazing instrumentation)
-no catalysis center

I've got to say that I was a little disappointed...some good researchers there, though

[oopalfrootz]

I didn't think the NMR waiting times seemed at all bad at Irvine. Bearing in mind that *ahem* some unis typically have queues of 48 hours to book NMR time, and insist you use irritating autosamplers from "routine analysis"...