Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Facility

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a sophisticated and powerful yet non-destructive technique that employs strong magnetic fields and radiofrequencies to reveal the structural and dynamic characteristics of materials at the molecular level.

The facility supports teaching and research staff and students in the School of Science and is also available for collaborative projects across RMIT.

The facility in located in building 3, level 1 room 5.

RMIT is a node of the Australian NMR network (ANZMAGnet). 

Research areas

NMR finds a variety of applications in many disciplines of scientific research, medicine, and various industries. Some of the applications of NMR spectroscopy at RMIT are:

• solution state identification and structure determination of a range of biomolecules (e.g. metabolites and proteins)
• chemical analysis, particularly for organic synthesis chemistry
• natural product analyses
• material and food science.

Many other possible applications exist from the study of bio-molecular systems and structural biology to geological and environmental science applications.

Most NMR facilities offer either liquid state NMR spectroscopy or solid state NMR spectroscopy and, rarely, time domain NMR. The NMR instrumentation and staff expertise in various complementary branches of NMR make the RMIT facility uniquely suited to the exploration of complex systems that are resistant to other means of analysis.

Opening hours

Standard opening times are 9.30 am - 5.00 pm Monday to Friday. 
Some experiments may be left running overnight.

Equipment

Our instruments cover the range from low-field NMR (Minispec mq20 spectrometer) to (relatively) high-field (Bruker 300MHz Avance III  and Agilent/Varian 500MHz DD2 spectrometers).

Minispec mq20

Designed to investigate the time domain NMR characteristics of liquid, solid and gaseous state materials. These characteristics reveal the dynamic properties of, and interactions between, atoms and molecules in a sample.

It is especially useful for investigating components of differing mobility’s in mixtures ranging from food-stuffs to polymer blends to ionic liquids to geological samples.

Bruker 300MHz spectrometer

Designed for walk-up routine molecular structural analysis, via proton and multinuclear NMR spectroscopy, of organic compounds in solution.

It is heavily used by synthetic organic chemists in the College of Science, Engineering and Health.

Varian 500MHz spectrometer and VARIAN ProStar HPLC

Equipped for multinuclear analysis of solutions, for solid state analysis of organic solids, and for LC-NMR spectroscopy. It is used by materials chemists, environmental scientists, natural product chemists and those who pursue metabolomics.

When coupled with the ProStar HPLC the set up has the ability to separate components within a sample in situ. This is the preferred NMR technique for components which are unstable to light, air, time or the environment. It is particularly useful for the structural identification of natural products.

Fees

Access to is free to School of Science research staff and students. Costs for other users will be on a cost recovery model depending on the number of samples and the amount of time needed.

Bookings

Users must register and be trained before booking time on instruments in advance. Please contact the relevant NMR steering committee member depending on your area of interest.

If you can't use your booking, please cancel it as soon as possible to allow others use the instruments. 

Key staff

The facility is managed by the NMR steering committee:

• Dr Robert Brkljača (NMR research officer)
  
• Dr Iko Burgar (Solid state and time domain NMR)
• Dr Oliver Jones (Metabolomics and Australian NMR network)
• Dr Sylvia Urban (Natural product structure identification)
• Mr Sunly Prum (Technical officer)