The Instrument Centre has thoroughly updated its NMR instruments during spring 2016. After the upgrade, the centre includes 5 well-equipped NMR spectrometers ranging from 600 Mhz to 400 Mhz. Our instruments are housed in two different locations in the university area: Arcanum and Axelia. Arcanum houses 3 NMR spectrometers (600, 500 and 400 MHz) and remaining two (both 500 MHz) are located in Axelia.

In addition to NMR instruments, the Arcanum Instrument Centre also houses a high-resolution Bruker QTOF MS/MS spectrometer.

Three high field NMR-spectrometers (400, 500 and 600 MHz) were installed in the Instrument Centre in December, 2003. The configuration of the instruments were at first chosen to fulfill the needs of organic chemistry, but interesting X-nuclei were also observed. All of the NMR instruments were very similar both in hardware and software, which facilitated more efficient training and maintenance.

Special features that are worthwhile to mention:

Both 500 and 600 MHz instruments have automated sample changers and inverse autotune-probes. Therefore, it’s possible to run all basic NMR-experiments overnight from 6 to 10 samples without operator control. The 400 MHz instrument also included a solid state option. It was the first CP/MAS instrument in Turku.

The Centre also maintained two older instruments, Bruker DPX250 and JEOL Eclipse 400. They were both originally privately owned. The DPX250 was upgraded in 2008 for what was originally an AC250. This made the superconducting magnet on the instrument more than 30 years old. The Jeol instrument was reinstalled in the Instrument Centre in December, 2012. Both spectrometers were in active use in students’ exercises until the update.