Facilities and Equipment

science center

Swarthmore's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry is housed in a state-of-the-art, integrated science facility, which includes modern classrooms and teaching laboratories as well as a generous amount of laboratory space for student-faculty research.

Chemistryand Biochemistry Facilities

Chemistry equipment

Our state-of-the-art facility has generous laboratory space equipped with an extensive list of modern instrumentation that students use in their course work and research, including: 

  • Bruker Ascend 400MHz NMR with autosampler
  • electron spin resonance spectrometer
  • high-performance liquid chromatography apparatus
  • X-ray diffractometer
  • circular dichroism spectrometer, AVIV 410
  • gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer
  • molecular modeling and visualization facility using GAUSSIAN software
  • infrared and ultraviolet/visible spectrophotometers
  • capillary electrophoresis apparatus
  • high-precision differential scanning (micro) calorimeter
  • various spectrofluorimeters
  • multiple GCs used in organic laboratory

Biochemistry equipment

  • One AKTA Basic and two units of AKTA Prime - high quality liquid chromatography system for protein purification.
  • PCR Thermal Cycler and MJ Research MiniCycler with Hot Bonnet
  • Cell Disruptor: Microfluidics M-110Y microfluidizer - can lyse large volumes of bacteria very quickly.
  • Two Refrigerated Centrifuges - Sorvall RC-5C centrifuge with SS-34 rotor and Sorvall RC-6+
  • Small Volume Nanodrop ND-1000 UV/Visible spectrophotometer - great for protein or DNA concentrations, requires only 1-2 ul of sample.
  • Refrigerated Incubator Shaker, Amerex 747R with spring platform to accommodate a variety of tube and flask sizes.
  • Incubator Shakers: New Brunswick Scientific C25 and refrigerated shaker, Amerex 747
  • Wallac 1420 Victor2:  Multilabel counter for quantitative detection of light-emitting or light-absorbing markers.

If you have any questions about our facilities, contact Ian McGarvey, our facility manager and scientific instrumentation specialist.