Departmental Central Facilities

The department strives to provide core central facilities with modern instruments required to pursue research in many different areas of chemistry.  Some of the major facilities available in the department are described below.  Department promotes collaborative and academic/industrial use of these facilities and those interested in utilizing them may please contact the concerned in-charge(s).  

NMR Facility

Incharge, Prof. P. Ghosh, (Email: pghosh[at]chem.iitb.ac.in)

Co-incharge, , (Email:)

The Department of Chemistry houses a sophisticated State-of-the-Art 400 MHz Varian Mercury NMR spectrometer, catering to the heavy research demand of our department and other local universities and industries on a daily basis.  Department of Science and Technology (DST) funded the instrument under its IRHPA scheme in 2002.  Standard 1D, 2D, multinuclear experiments etc. along with the high-end NMR research experiments are routinely carried out in this spectrometer.  In addition to the 400 MHz instrument, there is also a 60 MHz NMR spectrometer, which too serves the daily demand for routine NMR spectroscopy. 

The operator is inserting an NMR tube in the magnet.

Mass Facility

Incharge, Prof. G. Naresh Patwari, (Email: naresh[at]chem.iitb.ac.in)

Co-incharge, Prof. K.P Kaliappan, (Email: kpk[at]chem.iitb.ac.in)

The department has a Q-TOF micromass (YA-105) spectrometer capable of recording high-resolution mass spectrum (HRMS) both in the APCI (Atmospheric Pressure Chemical Ionization) and the ESI (Electrospray Ionization) modes.  Apart from fulfilling all the departmental research needs, the Mass Spectrometer facility routinely renders external services to local universities and industries.   

The operator is injecting a sample.

Gas Chromatography

Incharge : Prof. R. Murugavel (Email:rmv[at]chem.iitb.ac.in)

The Department of Chemistry houses a highly sophisticated instruments like Shimadzu-14A and Shimadzu-15A Gas Chromatography, which caters the heavy demands of the research work and various lab courses of the department. The instrument is useful not only for the departmental students but also serves the purpose of the universities and many industries in Mumbai.

The Operator in front of Gas Chromatograph.

Faraday Magnetic and TGA/DTA

Incharge,Prof. G.K. Lahiri , (Email: lahiri[at]chem.iitb.ac.in)

Nano Second Laser Facility

Incharge,Prof. G. Naresh Patwari, (Email: naresh[at]chem.iitb.ac.in)

A Student with the Nano Second Pulse Dye Laser

M. Sc. Physical Chemistry Laboratory

Incharge,Prof. A. Datta, (Email: anindya[at]chem.iitb.ac.in)

This laboratory mainly serves the purpose of training the 5 year and 2 year M. Sc. students in classical and modern experiments of physical chemistry. The experiments range from surface tension and viscosity measurement to experiments in electrochemistry, photochemistry and chemical applications of UV-visible absorption, fluorescence, infrared and NMR spectroscopic techniques etc. Recently, a modernization drive has been undertaken with generous funding from MHRD and the Institute. The laboratory now boasts of sophisticated instruments like an LCR bridge and a digital refractometer. A new potentiostat and computerized surface tensiometer are about to be procured. Novel experiments in fluorescence spectroscopy and laser-induced photobleaching have been designed and are to be introduced shortly. Very soon, we hope to have a state-of-the art laboratory, which will not only cater to our teaching requirements, but will also serve as a centralized facility for researchers in Physical Chemistry.

Ultrafast spectroscopy facility

Incharge, Prof. A. Datta, (Email:anindya[at]chem.iitb.ac.in)

The Department of Chemistry has recently procured a diode laser based Fluorocube time resolved fluorescence spectrometer from IBH, UK. The instrument has a response function of 250 ps and l_ex = 405 nm. It uses TCSPC (Time Correlated Single Photon Counting) detection and iterative reconvolution technique to measure fluorescence lifetime and anisotropy and to record time resolved emission spectra. Lifetimes of 100 ps can be recorded with accuracy. We are planning to upgrade this instrument further with a microchannel plate photomultiplier, cryostat and diode lasers of different wavelengths in order to fully exploit the capabilities of the instrument. In near future, with the support from a DST FIST grant, we have plans to setup a state-of-the-art femtosecond titanium sapphire based fluorescence upconversion facility to investigate ultrafast dynamics in the subpicosecond timescale. Eventually, we aim to establish a facility in which dynamics in the range of femtosecond to millisecond timescales may also be investigated. 

A student using a Pico-Second Laser

Optical Spectroscopy Laboratory

Incharge,Prof. A. Datta, (Email: anindya[at]chem.iitb.ac.in)

Co-Incharge: Prof. I.N.N. Namboothiri (E-mail: irishi[at]chem.iitb.ac.in)

The Optical Spectroscopy laboratory consists of Jasco V 570, Perkin Elmer Lambda 35, and several Shimadzu UV-visible absorption spectrophotometers equipped with temperature controller and integrating sphere accessories, two Perkin Elmer LS 55 fluorimeters and two Nicolet Avtaar IR spectrophotometers. These are used regularly by researchers of the department as well as by those from other departments for spectroscopic characterization and studies. Presently, the instruments are housed in three different laboratories but very soon, they are going to be transferred to an integrated optical spectroscopy laboratory.

Microanalysis Laboratory

Incharge,Prof. I.N.N Namboothiri, (Email: irishi[at]chem.iitb.ac.in)

The chemistry department has a ThermoQuest microanalysis instrument capable of carrying out CHNS (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and sulfur) analysis.  Both internal and external samples are routinely done here. 

CHNS Elemental Analyzer

Computer Laboratory

Incharge,Prof. R.B. Sunoj, (Email: sunoj[at]chem.iitb.ac.in)

The Department computer laboratory serves the students and faculty members in two major ways. High-end compute servers loaded with standard software tools contribute towards the research activities; larger number of PCs is made available so as to fulfill the teaching requirements. The facility can be accessed by both undergraduate and postgraduate students.

The undergraduate laboratory is equipped with 26 P-IV PCs housed in a fully air-conditioned room. This set up is primarily used for training both masters and research students in their course work. Additional facilities such as scanners, DeskJet and laser printers are available in our computer laboratory. Research scholars have 24-hour access to .Faculty/PhD computer room. where a number of terminals are set up for both computing as well as word processing applications.

The research computing facilities includes both 32- and 64-bit platforms operating under various versions of Unix/Linux OS. The important compute servers are listed below and efforts are being made to upgrade these computing facilities from time to time.  These facilities are in addition to those maintained by individual research groups within the department and others available through the institute computer center. 

These compute servers are dedicated for particular kind of applications either by making use of freeware or commercial software programs. Important software programs, which are routinely being used, include Gaussian98 and Gromacs. Most of the research groups use these servers also for executing indigenously developed programs for specific applications.

The Department Intel Xeon Compute Servers