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Chemistry and Biochemistry Resources and Services

Career Information

Chemistry is the central science and that means getting a chemistry degree opens up many opportunities for your career. If you are interested in working in agriculture, pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, flavors, fragrances, forensics, or environmental - chemistry is the undergraduate degree you need.

Maybe you see yourself going to graduate school in chemistry, biochemistry, pharmaceutical science or environmental science. Or maybe you are pre-med, pre-dent, etc. Chemistry turns out to be a better choice for an undergraduate degree as it allows you to stand out in the application process and makes you better prepared for the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT). No matter what your career plans, if you are interested in any of these areas, talk to a chemistry faculty member.

For more information about careers for chemists check out:

Opportunities to do Undergraduate Research

Thinking about going to graduate school or professional school (medical, pharmacy, dentistry etc.)? Then make the most out of your undergraduate experience and do some undergraduate research. Find out more here Undergraduate Research Opportunities and Resources.

Scholarships

Throughout the year a limited number of scholarships are available to chemistry majors. Most scholarships required that you submit a curriculum vitae, a statement about your goals and/or career path, and transcripts (unofficial ones are OK in most situations). Please see our Scholarships page for details.

SciFinder

SciFinder is a research tool used by scientists around the world to access single- and multi-step reactions, experimental and predicted properties, and substance information from the CAS Registry for chemical substance information. Students can register for SciFinder here and log in to SciFinder here.

ChemSketch

The department has ChemSketch installed on all computers in the Student Computer Lab, Room 3008. More information about ChemSketch can be found on the ChemSketch website.

Chemistry Computer Lab

A chemistry computer lab is available for you to study, prepare your lab reports, complete online homework in Building 50, Room 3008. The computers are equipped with software to draw chemical structures (ChemSketch). Web cameras are available for use.

Library/Search Facilities and Chemistry Tools

The Department of Chemistry has online access to full ACS journals, articles, and many other non-ACS journals via ScienceDirect and other chemistry databases, available through the UNF Thomas Carpenter Library. For more information, visit the Library Chemistry Guide or contact Lauren Odom.

The Royal Society of Chemistry is one of the world's leading scientific publishers, offering an exceptional range of peer-reviewed journals, magazines, books, databases and publishing services to the chemical science community.

Chemistry Tune Up Course

Chemistry is offering a program to help our students succeed in Chemistry. The Chemistry faculty have found students that are struggling in the course after the first exam are less likely to complete CHM2045 with a C or better. For that reason, Chemistry is offering a “tune-up” that allows the student to transfer out of CHM2045 and into CHM1025 (Introduction to Chemistry). This will allow the student to acquire the skills and knowledge needed for success prior to re-enrolling in CHM2045 the following semester. Click here for more information.

Chronicle of Higher Education

The Thomas G. Carpenter Library now offers full online access to The Chronicle of Higher Education Web site. To access the site, go to https://www.chronicle.com from any campus computer. No password is necessary. Off-campus access is available to current faculty, staff and students through Quick Links in MyWings and from several library database pages. A link is also available on the library’s faculty information page that automatically prompts the login when you are off campus, at https://libguides.unf.edu. The login is the same as for other library databases. For a quick summary of available content, visit the site map at https://www.chronicle.com/page/site-map. Highlighted features include the following:

  • Web site updates throughout the day
  • Text from the current print edition posted every Monday morning
  • A searchable archive of every issue published since September 1998
  • Commentary and essays from the weekly magazine, The Chronicle Review
  • Data from the annual almanac and other special, single-topic reports
  • Complimentary e-mail newsletters at https://www.chronicle.com/account/get-newsletters

Analytical Services

The Analytical Instrumentation Facility is equipped with a suite of advanced analytical instruments, including NMR, FTIR, UV-Vis, and HPLC/MS, to meet your sample analysis needs.

Our services are available at reasonable prices. Whether it is a simple sample analysis, method development, or a more complicated structural elucidation, quality work is provided in a timely fashion.

Click the instrument below for rate information. The charges are on a per sample or per hour basis depending on the instrument involved. For special requests such as NMR data interpretations, analyses requiring the use of several instruments, complex mixture analysis, etc., please contact Dr. Sam Xia at (904) 620-1962 or sam.xia@unf.edu.

  • Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Analysis (NMR)

    Our NMR facility features a Bruker NEO™ 500 MHz NMR spectrometer equipped with a BBFO SmartProbe, an autosampler, and a BCU-I temperature controller

      • UltraShield™ Plus Ascend™compact NMR magnet with 5.4 cm bore, operation field at 11.744 Tesla. Bruker Orthogonal Shim System (BOSS ™-3) with 36 gradient shims.
      • Two RF channels high performance digital NEO NMR console with two transceiver units (TRX1200). Each TRX1200 provides a full broad banded transmit and a full broad banded receive channel up to 1.2 GHz.
      • BCU-I temperature regulation unit for precise sample temperature control down to near 0oC.
      • SampleCase automatic sample changer with 24 easily accessed sample positions.
      • 5 mm z-gradient broadband 1H/19F–X multinuclear (BBFO) SMART probe covering the range from 15N to 31P as well as 19F with 1H decoupling.
    Rates (per sample)
    Charge per sample On Campus Off Campus (academic) Industry
    1H $25 $40 $60
    13C/29Si $40 $55 $90
    19F $25 $40 $60
    31P $40 $55 $90
    APT $40 $60 $90
    DEPT $50 $70 $100
    COSY $40 $60 $80
    TOCSY $50 $70 $100
    HSQC $60 $100 $120
    HMBC $100 $150 $170

     

    Picture of the Bruker Ascend NMR instrument
  • Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR)

    Available Instruments:

    • Bruker Alpha II-Platinum FTIR with Platinum Diamond-ATR
    • Thermo Fisher Scientific Nicolet iS10 FTIR with Smart iTX ATR

     

    IR Service Rates (per sample)
    Located Charge Per Sample
    On Campus $40
    Off Campus (Academic) $60
    Industry $80

    *minimum charge 1 hour.

    Bruker Alpha II-Platinum FTIR

    Bruker Alpha II-Platinum FTIR instrument

    Thermo Fisher Scientific Nicolet iS10 FTIR with Smart iTX ATR

    Thermo Fisher Scientific Nicolet iS10 FTIR instrument
  • Ultraviolet and Visible Spectroscopy (UV/Vis)

    Available Instruments:

    • Agilent Cary 4000 UV-Vis with Diffuse Reflectance Accessory (DRA)
    • Thermo Fisher Scientific Evolution 220 UV-Vis
    Rates*
    Located Charge per hour
    On Campus $40
    Off Campus (Academic) $60
    Industry $80

    *minimum charge is 1 hour

    Agilent Cary 4000 UV-Vis

    Agilent Cary 4000 UV-Vis instrument

    Thermo Fisher Scientific Evolution 220 UV-Vis

    Thermo Fisher Scientific Evolution 220 UV-Vis instrument
  • High-Performance Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometric Analysis (HPLC-MS)

    Available Instrument:

    • Thermo Fisher Scientific LTQ XL Mass Spectrometer with ESI probe and UltiMate 3000 UHPLC
    Rates*
    Located Charge per hour
    On Campus $80
    Off Campus (Academic) $120
    Industry $160

    *minimum charge is 1 hour

    If method development is required, please contact Dr. Sam Xia at (904) 620-1962 or by email at sam.xia@unf.edu for a quote.

    UHPLC Dionex Ultimate 3000 MS LTQ XL

    UHPLC Dionex Ultimate 3000 MS LTQ XL instrument

Chemistry Instrumentation

We have a large array of scientific instrumentation for use in both teaching and research. Our current inventory includes:

  • Bruker 500 MHz Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectrometer

 

  • Single Crystal Bruker D8 Venture X-ray Diffractometer with micro-focus Mo X-ray source for low temperature data collection, and high pressure data collection (up to 50GPa) using a diamond anvil cell

 

  • Cary 4000 UV-Vis Spectrophotometer
  • ThermoScientific Evolution UV-visible Spectrophotometer
  • ThermoScientific NanoDrop Lite Spectrophotometer
  •  Perkin Elmer Lambda35 UV/Vis Spectrophotometer
  • Bruker Alpha II FTIR
  • Nicolet iS10 Mid Infrared FT-IR Spectrometer
  • Perkin Elmer AAnalyst 800 Flame/Graphite Furnace Atomic Absorption Spectrometer
  • Perkin Elmer Atomic Absorption AAnalyst 400
  • Perkin Elmer ICP atomic emission spectrophotometer
  • 6700 FTIR Raman Microscope System

 

  • LTQ XL Mass Spectrometer with ESI probe and UltiMate 3000 HPLC
  • Agilent 1260 Infinity II HPLC
  • LCQ Deca XP Plus electrospray ion trap mass spec + Agilent LC
  • Hewlett-Packard HP Agilent 5890 Gas Chromatograph with FID detector
  • BASi Epsilon Biopotentiostat
  • TA SDT 650 Discovery Series TGA-DSC

 

  • iBright FL1500 Imaging System
  • GE Healthcare Typhoon Image System
  • Bio Rad Trans Blot Transfer system
  • BioRad CFX Real-time (RT) qPCR System
  • BioRad T100 Thermal Cycler

 

  • Lynx 4000 Centrifuge
  • Thermo Sorvall Legend X1R Centrifuge
  • Steris AMSCO 250LS Steam Autoclave
  • Milli-Q Reference A+ Water Purification System

 

  • Fisher Forma -40C Freezer
  • Fisher Isotemp -80C Freezer (3)

 

  • High Performance Computing Cluster featuring nine dual Intel 12 core Xeon processor computing nodes

Facilities

The Chemistry department is located in the Science & Engineering Building, Building 50. This facility provides teaching and research facilities for the departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Physics, and laboratory spaces for engineering.

The building includes two state-of-the-art lecture halls, a timber-woodland laboratory, a construction and structural materials laboratory, a state-of-the-art analytical chemistry laboratory, and research laboratories for Chemistry and Physics faculty.

The chemistry labs and individual offices are situated on the second and third floor of the building in the south wing. Lecture halls and classrooms (including a 125-seat auditorium with a fume hood) are located on the first floor.

In 2020, Chemistry expanded and renovated more than 20,000 square feet to provide six new research laboratories, three new teaching laboratories, a computer laboratory, a classroom for upper-level lectures, a cold room, an autoclave room, two student study areas, a locker room, a receiving room, a new ACS Chemistry Club room, a new Department office, and 16 new faculty/staff offices. Chemistry now has ~63,000 sq. ft. of space providing room for faculty and student growth.