Environmental Geochemistry Lab
The geochemical laboratory plays a fundamental role for the all the environmental related research at the department of Earth Sciences and is used by post-graduate students. Complex chemical preparation processes can be conducted for analysis either in this lab or in other laboratory facilities. Currently standard procedures for the measurement of nitrate, silicate … are established.
The GC lab consists of 2 large rooms whereof one is equipped with spacious work benches and 3 fume hoods. Additional instrument are set up in two separate smaller rooms.
More information on the laboratory equipment can be found on our team's website: https://tracexsite.wordpress.com/laboratory-facilities/
Currently 2 Postdocs, 3 PhD, 4 MSc, and 6 Honours student work on a variety of environmental projects. These include work on biogeochemical cycles in the marine and freshwater environments. A multitude of projects are related to the Southern Ocean and local streams. These include trace metal studies on the hydrous, solid and biological phases. Paleoenvironmental reconstruction of peat and marine sediments form another focus of projects based in this lab.
The laboratory itself is well equipped to conduct low-temperature pressure geochemistry research with a focus on water and soils. Apart from general small equipment like balances and pH probe, the laboratory houses:
Laminar flow bench
Muffle furnace, Scientific
Freeze Dryer, VirTis BenchTop Pro
Rotary Evaporator, Heidolph
Thermostatic cabinet, Aqualytic
Shaking incubator
Sonicator and water bath
Picarro G2201-i Analyzer
UV-Vis spectrophotometer
FTIR Nicolette 6700
IC Metrohm 761 Compact
Picotrace acid digestion cabinet
Other equipment such as ICP-MS (Agilent 8800, Agilent 7900 and Element II sector field), HPLC, UPLC-qTOF, ACQUITY UPC2, and GC-MS are available at Central Analytical Facilities (CAF).
Contact Person: Dr Alakendra Roychoudhury
Examples of our Environmental Geochemistry Lab equipment:
VirTis BenchTop Pro Freeze Dryer and muffle furnace
Rotary Evaporator
Microscale
