Laboratory Equipment

The Bruker Avance III 500 nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer was bought in spring of 2011. The proton resonance freqency at 500 MHz corresponds to the internal magnetic field of 11.75 T. It is equipped with the following Bruker probes:

• Goniometer probe
• Magic angle spinning (MAS) probe with the diameter of the rotors of 2.5 mm and the maximum spinning rate of 35 kHz
• Microimaging probe capable of measuring diffusion in z-gradiantes and recording the micorimages using all three x-, y- and z-gradients
• Home developed Rheo-NMR devices of the cylindrical Couette and cone-and-plate geometry. They fit onto the goniometer probe and are driven by a stepper motor placed on top of the magnet.

The NMR spectrometer was developed in house at J. Stefan Institute. It is built around the Oxford superconducting magnet with the magnetic field of 8.93 T and has a cryostat, which may be cooled with liquid nitrogen or liquid helium. The spectrometer is equipped with the automated tunning device and is thus capable of recording very broad spectra of up to several tens of MHz. The measuring probes are home-built and thus fully adaptable to the needs of the user.

From Retsch GmbH: "The CryoMill is tailored for cryogenic grinding. The grinding jar is continually cooled with liquid nitrogen from the integrated cooling system before and during the grinding process. Thus the sample is embrittled and volatile components are preserved. The liquid nitrogen circulates through the system and is continually replenished from an Autofill system in the exact amount which is required to keep the temperature at -196 °C. Powerful impact ball milling results in a perfect grinding efficiency. The Autofill system avoids direct contact with LN2 and makes cryogenic grinding very safe. Its versatility (cryogenic, wet and dry grinding at room temperature) makes the CryoMill the ideal grinder for quantities up to 20 ml."

Retsch Cryomill

The home-built extensiometer is capable of ...