Facilities and Equipment
The 6,000 square-foot facility consists of six laboratories, several offices, a conference room, and computer and graduate student areas. In addition to the specialized environmental and stable isotope mass spectrometers, standard analytical and sample preparation equipment includes:
- GV Instruments Platform XS Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS) with HPLC for speciation ultrasonic nebulizer/hydride interfaces
- CEM MARS XPress Microwave Digester/Extraction System
- Seal AQ2 Autoanalyzer for nutrient and other colorimetric methods
- Perkin-Elmer AAnalyst 400 Atomic Absorption spectrophotometer
- OI Model 1010 organic carbon analyzer
- Dionex ICS-90 and DX-100 ion chromatographs
- Spectronic Genesys spectrophotometer
- Hewlett Packard 5890 gas chromatograph (FID and ECD)
- Waters 2695 HPLC/PDA/Fluorescence detector and fraction collector
- Trace Analytical RGA reduced gas analyzer
- Gow Mac gas chromatograph (TCD)
- Solid phase extraction manifolds
- Suprex SFE50 supercritical fluid extractor
- RapidVap N2 sample concentrator
- Ultrasonic probe
- Thomas Wiley Mill
- Burrell wrist action shaker
- Labconco Kjeldahl manifold
- Steam distillation unit
- Rotary evaporators
The Water Sciences Laboratory also has a modified Agilent 6890 gas chromatograph (uECD and TCD) with vacuum extraction system dedicated to CFC analysis used in ground water age-dating. See the Lab's brochure for more information regarding this method and other services offered. Contact Dan Snow (402-472-7539) for information on sample requirements and methods not listed.
Specialized Equipment
Plasma Mass Spectrometer
Plasma Chamber*
*A plasma chamber in the WSL's inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS). The bright glow in the center is an argon plasma heated to around 10,000 degrees K where elements such as lead, copper or arsenic from a sample are immediately ionized.