October 9th, 2000
 
To: Faculty and Staff
From: Dr. John Harwood, Director, NMR Facilities
Re: NMR Facility News
 
The purpose of this memo is to brief everyone on what has been happening recently, and what will be happening in the near future, with our NMR Facilities.
 
RRC-East NMR Lab - upgrades and improvements
We have a few developments to report regarding the equipment in this lab.
1. CP-MAS upgrade (DRX-500). The CP-MAS Level-1 upgrade was installed on our DRX-500 in June of this year. This upgrade was funded by an NSF-CRIF proposal submitted in January 1999. This installation works very nicely and has been tested with solid samples from the Frydman group and with supported-phase samples from the Crich group. Installation of the CP-MAS probe takes approximately 30 minutes and the automatic spinning regulation system is easy to use and very stable. We anticipate on average one to two days per week solids usage on the DRX-500 as the four faculty members who contributed to the CRIF proposal get their projects underway.
2. BBO Z-gradient probe (DPX-400). At the moment, of our two new NMR's, only the DRX-500 has a conventional-geometry broadband-observe 5mm probe. This type of probe is used for direct 13C (or other X-nucleus) observation, and this type of usage is very common with our user base. In order to maximize the utility of our new NMR lab, I have ordered a similar probe for our new DPX-400, to complement the current inverse-geometry probe. This new 5mm BBO probe will be equipped with a Z-gradient coil for gradient-enhanced 2D spectroscopy (the 5mm BBO probe on the DRX-500 was upgraded to Z-gradient capability early this year). This probe will allow maximum flexibility in scheduling and will permit the observation of 13C spectra at high sensitivity even when the DRX-500 is unavailable. The inverse probe will continue to be available for the DPX-400 for high-sensitivity 1H applications. We anticipate delivery of this new probe by the end of the year.
 
Varian Mercury-Vx-300
Our Varian VXR-300S NMR spectrometer was upgraded in May and June of this year to a new Mercury-Vx console with a 50-sample sample-changer accessory. The console upgrade included a new Sun Ultra-5 host computer which is much faster than the old Sun 3/60. A new Nalorac QNP+ 5mm probe was obtained to complement the new console and this was installed last month, thus making the Varian effectively an all-new system. Funding for this new equipment was provided by the Dreyfus Foundation and the NSF CCLI A&I program, as well as UIC matching funds. I will be sending out another memo shortly regarding the need to expand the usage of this spectrometer in our undergraduate teaching labs.
 
Despite a few minor installation glitches the new Mercury system is running very well. The new computer is extremely fast and the console performs very well and seems quite robust. The sample-changer hardware and automation software have been set up and also work nicely, although we have not yet tested the equipment with a full complement of fifty samples. The Nalorac QNP+ probe allows for observation of any of the four nuclei 1H, 19F, 31P and 13C without retuning the probe, with the option of observing other X-nuclei being available after probe retuning by NMR facility staff. Speaking of staff, Alex Bischoff deserves a big thank-you for all of his assistance with the installation and setup of the new Varian system.
 
Please keep in mind that although the sample-changer was purchased using funding obtained from teaching-related proposals it can be used for research when not being used for teaching. Thus if anyone has a series of many samples to be run back-to-back this equipment is perfectly suited to the task.
 
Off-Line NMR data processing
1. RRC-East NMR lab. We recently purchased a new SGI O2 workstation (R5200) and this has been installed in the RRC-East NMR lab along with a new laser printer. We have purchased a license to run Bruker's XWinNMR package on this new computer, and this software has been installed and is now available for use. This workstation provides off-line NMR data processing capability using the same software that is on our new Bruker Avance NMR's, and any Avance user is automatically granted access to this new workstation. In addition, NMR data is shared between the new workstation and the two spectrometers so that it is not necessary to manually move data around between the computers. Other highlights of the new workstation include faster processing and printing than the Avance host computers, and easy access by any user to the Jaz drive (for data archiving).
 
2. Computer Facility. A new 667-MHz Pentium-III PC has been purchased and installed in our departmental computer facility (4114 SES). This PC is equipped with the 2D version of NUTS, which is a third-party NMR data processing program. This software can process 1D and 2D NMR data obtained on any of our spectrometers. The software is easy to use and quite fast on this PC. One important facet of this software is that it provides the ability to cut-and-paste spectra into e.g. word-processing documents. To facilitate this, Microsoft Office has been installed on this PC. Another useful application of this PC is for data archiving: using the WS-FTP software package one can copy data directories from our Avance spectrometers to the PC where they can then be archived to the built-in ZIP drive. I am very grateful to Don Rippon for his extensive assistance in getting this PC set up.
 
Web-based instrument reservation
One of our ongoing projects has been the development of a web-based instrument time reservation system. Recently, Devin Sears completed the adaptation of some freeware scheduling software available from Indiana University to our Facility's needs. We are in the final stages of testing this software. After this, we can decide how to migrate our current instrument rime reservation system to the on-line system. A big thank-you goes to Devin for the huge amount of effort he has put into this project.
 
In closing, if anyone has any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to contact me.