Molecular Engineering

Brookhaven analysers at heart of research in molecular and engineering thermodynamics at University of Delaware, USA

The Center for Molecular and Engineering Thermodynamics (CMET), part of the University of Delaware’s Department of Chemical Engineering, is a focal point for experimental and theoretical research into techniques that are increasingly being used to tackle contemporary issues such as environmental problems, the purification of pharmaceuticals and new separations technologies.

The Center is investigating methods for determining when infinite dilution has been reached and is conducting studies of new chromatographic separation techniques and methods for making calorimetric measurements over a wide range of temperatures and pressures. At the heart of CMET’s state-of-the-art laboratory are analysis systems supplied recently by Brookhaven.

One, the ZetaPlus, is used for measurements on particles ranging from a few nanometers to 30 microns in diameter. Because its research involves samples that are sometimes in fluids containing a high concentration of salt, CMET also ordered the ZetaPALS analyser. Using the technique of phase analysis light scattering, ZetaPALS is 1000 times more sensitive than conventional instruments and is ideally suited to this work. Brookhaven’s BI-200SM research goniometer is helping the Center with exacting scattering measurements such as macromolecular studies and submicron particle sizing, while its 90Plus particle sizer carries out the laboratory’s fast, routine, submicron measurements.

“It was particularly important for us to be able to carry out measurements of materials in organic solvents, with low zeta potentials, or in fluids with high salt concentrations,” said CMET faculty member Professor Norman J Wagner. “We checked out the competition, but Brookhaven’s instruments were the only ones to meet our specifications and the company is giving us good support,” he added.