Research Facilities
With state-of-the-art facilities, Penn State Chemistry offers an exciting, supportive environment to pursue research and innovation. Keep reading to learn more.
Chemistry Facilities
The Chemistry Maintenance Shop provides an array of facility repair services and handles laboratory and office renovations. They can do painting, carpentry, and some electrical work. They install laboratory equipment and will remove old items that need to go to surplus.
The Maintenance Shop is the first place to call for all building maintenance and janitorial related issues such as heating or air conditioning problems, no lights, power or other electrical problems, leaks, etc.
Emergencies occurring after regular business hours, weekends or University holidays should be reported directly to the OPP Work Reception Center at 814-865-4731
The Chemistry Pump Shop located in 22 Pond Lab provides service, repair and rebuild on a number of vacuum pumps, and also offers a limited amount rebuilt pumps for sale. To reach the Pump Shop during normal business hours (Monday - Friday), call (814) 865-7952. All Pump Shop job requests now go through the ILab System (Click Here - Pump Shop)
Supervisor
Rob Gavlock
Email: rag124@psu.edu
Location: 127 Benkovic Building
Phone: 814-867-2857
Contact Rob for facilities issues and repairs as well as building and lab renovations
Staff
Tim Hillard (Pump Shop Technician)
22 Pond Laboratory
Emai: tdh14@psu.edu
(814) 865-7952
Michael Eger
132 Benkovic Building
Email: mje11@psu.edu
(814) 867-2857
Staff Assistant
Jen Miller
Email: jft5691@psu.edu
Location: 101 Benkovic Building
Phone: 814-865-1306
Contact Jen when Rob is unavailable for General building issues and repairs
The mission of the Research Instrumentation Facility is to provide support for both research and educational programs. We provide cost-effective and high-quality services for design and fabrication of custom instrumentation and the maintenance and repair of equipment which is used throughout the Penn State community. Among the items that are accepted for repair: stir plates, shakers, balances, water chillers and miscellaneous test equipment. To reach the Electronics Research Instrumentation Facility during normal business hours (Monday - Friday) call (814) 865-0254 or (814) 865-6553
Examples of custom design projects:
High voltage high speed switching
High frequency low noise amplifiers
Simple Spectrophotometer
Karl Fischer Titrator
Cyclic Voltammeter
Conductivity Meter
Optical communications
Examples of equipment repair:
UV/VIS spectrophotometers
FTIR spectrometers
NMR spectrometers
PCR machines
Bench top and floor model centrifuges (Sorvall, Eppendorf, etc.)
CO2 incubators, ovens, furnaces and environmental chambers
Shakers, water baths, stirrers and hot plates
Test equipment oscilloscopes, low and high voltage power supplies
Computer peripherals printers, monitors
**Job Requests now go through the iLab System (click here).
Staff
Bob Crable
121 Benkovic Building
Email: rmc114@psu.edu
(814) 865-0254
Randy Kochik
121 Benkovic Building
Email: rwk5400@psu.edu
(814) 865-6553
The department has hired a part-time glassblower, Jerry French, who is ready to receive departmental work requests. The shop is located in 22 Pond Lab. All requests go through ILab (Click here - Glassblowing Shop)
The Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Facility at Penn State is located at the basement of the Chemistry Building. The primary mission of the Facility is to make NMR spectroscopy and Micro-Imaging available to students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty of the University and of the surrounding Central Pennsylvania community for the advancement of their research.
Location: Room 8, Althouse Laboratory, neighboring the Chemistry building.
The Department of Chemistry X-ray Crystallography Facility is part of an Integrated Macromolecular and Small Molecule X-ray Crystallography Facility operated jointly by the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Crystal growth, 3-D structure determination and data analysis of both macromolecular and small molecule samples can be performed at the facility.
Instrumentation: Rigaku Micro-Max 007 rotating anode (copper) generator equipped with Osmic Varimax monochromator, four-circle universal goniometer and HyPix Arc150 detector is used for data collection. Oxford cobra cryo-system is used for sample cooling down to 100K. CrysAlis software for data collection and data-reduction, and auto-chem for automatic crystal structure solution are available. SHELX and OLEX2 software suites are used for the structure refinement and generate publication material.
Leica MZ7.5 10-80X stereomicroscope is available for inspection of sample prior to data collection.
Sample submission: Samples must be properly labeled and brought to/submitted in room 8 Althouse laboratory.
For more information, contact: Hemant Yennawar Ph.D.
Email: hpy1@psu.edu Phone: 814 865 8383
University Facilities
The Energy and Environmental Sustainability Laboratories (EESL) are shared multi-user instrumentation facilities at Penn State that tie together world-class instrumentation and expertise in a broad array of analytical techniques covering materials in all phases.
We are passionate about education and collaborative problem solving. An interdisciplinary team of scientists and engineers, the Materials Characterization Laboratory (MCL) is a fully-staffed, open access, analytical research facility at Penn State's Materials Research Institute charged with enabling research and educating the next generation of highly qualified researchers.
Our laboratories in the Millennium Science Complex are integrated with the Nanofabrication Laboratory and Materials Computation Center to maximize impact and efficiency. Additionally, MCL is a partner in the Materials Research Facilities Network (MRFN). Supported by the National Science Foundation, this network enhances our ability to support commercial, government, and academic researchers around the globe.
Our primary goal is to identify and quantify the small (<1kDa) molecules present in plant and animal biofluids and tissue extracts, as identifying perturbations in the amounts of particular metabolites can offer insights into the underlying biological processes involved in their production.
A hallmark of our facility is the “three laboratories-one integrated solution” concept. We provide open access to MRI facilities for fabrication at the nano- and micro-scale, in conjunction with materials and device characterization utilizing the most advanced techniques available, and a suite of computational modeling capabilities backed by faculty experts. With our three-lab solution, our staff scientists and engineers will enable users to transition fundamental research in nanomaterials to innovation-driven multicomponent integrated devices and system demonstration.
The Proteomics and Mass Spectrometry Core Facility offers highly sensitive and accurate mass spectrometry analysis, including identification and quantitation of proteins by liquid chromatography electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS-MS) or by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-TOF-MS).
The X-Ray Crystallography Facility provides the necessary infrastructure and support for individual investigators to undertake single crystal X-ray structural studies.
The 2DCC combines a vibrant in-house research effort focused on transformative advances in the synthesis and characterization of 2D chalcogenide layered materials with a robust external user program that provides access to expertise and state-of-the-art facilities.
Key Personnel
Materials Characterization Laboratory Director
Office: N-050C MSC
Phone: 1-814-863-2224
Email: jjs366@psu.edu
MRI Affiliations
Director, X-Ray Crystallography and Automated Biological Calorimetry Core Facilities
0088 Althouse Lab
University Park, PA 16802
Research Summary
Biological calorimetry, protein characterization, molecular modeling, X-ray crystallography, and small-angle X-ray scattering.
Huck Affiliations