Facilities

From Grey Lab Page

NMR Facility

Oxford 200 Oxford wide-bore magnet operating at 4.7T CMX-Infinity spectrometer with four channels, including 2 dedicated 1 kW amplifiers tuned to ¹H and ¹⁹F and two 500 W amplifiers for X and Y.

Chemagnetics 200 Varian/Chemagnetics wide-bore magnet operating at 4.7 T CMX-Infinity console with two channels, including a tunable 1 kW amplifier for ¹H, ¹⁹F and a 500 W amplifier for X.

Infinity 360 Varian/Chemagnetics wide-bore magnet operating at 8.45 T InfinityPlus console with three channels, including a broadband 1 kW amplifier for ¹H, ¹⁹F and two 500 W amplifiers for X and Y.

WB500 Oxford wide-bore magnet operating at 11.7 T InfinityPlus console with three channels, including a tunable 1 kW amplifier for ¹H, ¹⁹F and two 500 W amplifiers for X and Y.

In addition to our in-house capabilities, we have access to the facilities at The New York Structural Biology Center (NYSBC) and the SUNY Stony Brook Center for Structural Biology for high-field NMR spectroscopy.

Solid State Sythesis and Materials Characterization

Our lab utilizes a combination of techniques to synthesize materials of interest for potential use in several applications. Among these are well-established solid state methods, electrochemical cycling, solvothermal and molten salt synthesis, and ion-exchange. Below are a few instruments in our lab which help us synthesize and characterize our materials.

BET Micromeritics Sorption Analyzer Model 2010 The BET is used to measure the surface area of materials and estimate the particle size for sorption experiments.

Rigaku Desktop Powder X-ray Diffractometer Our solution for a quick check of the phase-purity of samples before an in-depth structure analysis using synchrotron or neutron sources and solid state NMR spectroscopy.

Solartron Impedance Analyzer Using a home-built sample holder, measurements could be performed as a function of temperature (up to 1000 °C).

High-temperature Ovens and Tube Furnaces Our high-temperature programmable ovens are routine for solid state syntheses. Lab ovens are also routinely used for hydrothermal or molten salt syntheses. The tube ovens are primarily used for nitradation of zeolites using ammonia gas or for reactions under an oxygen atmosphere.

N₂ and Ar Golveboxes Air or moisture-sensitive samples are prepared, packed in rotors or stored here.

Arbin - Battery cyclers An integral part of our efforts in understanding cathode and anode materials, our batteries are cycled using this equipment to different points on the charge-discharge profile at different rates and subsequently studied using a myriad of techniques. Recently, we succeeded in synchronizing our cyclers with our NMR spectrometers to obtain in-situ Li NMR data during cycling.

Gretch Planetary Ball Mill This equipment is used for so-called, mechano-chemical syntheses, whereby starting materials are "activated" during mixing and produce a desired product. The ball mill reduces the size of particles which may have interesting effects on their properties. Currently, we have stainless steel ball bearings for grinding.

Vacuum Lines Our three heater-equipped vacuum lines are used for either dehydration, sorption or ¹⁷O-enrichment of materials.