Facilities Overview

As evidenced by their numerous patents, awards, and unparalleled levels of federal support, Rutgers researchers are leaders in chemistry. They will accomplish much more as their facilities keep pace with their research agendas. The possibilities are virtually limitless, but one thing is clear: the CCB facilities are critical to continuing and expanding upon a tradition of research excellence.

When considering where to pursue their studies and careers, top-notch students and faculty should feel safe choosing Rutgers, knowing their future pursuits will be supported by our state-of-the-art facilities. Program graduates, equipped with training in the much-desired science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines, currently enjoy a nearly 100% post-graduation employment rate. Given this trend, and the fact that approximately 80% of Rutgers graduates remain within the area after graduation, it is easy to see that the benefits of the department's facilities extend well beyond campus, to the region as a whole.

Chemistry & Chemical Biology Building

In September 2018, we opened our new signature building. It hosts open flexible labs and advanced core facilities as well as modern teaching, conferencing, and communal spaces that maximize collaborative interactions. The facility’s modular design and versatile infrastructure allow reconfiguration of labs and classrooms to respond as teaching methods and technology evolve and the needs of students and faculty change.

The building also allows the university to expand upon its tradition of collaborative research with leading academic labs, federal agencies, and private companies both in the state and around the world. The building includes a microscopy suite, mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and X-ray crystallography laboratories. 

Wright-Rieman Chemistry Laboratories

This fully-equipped complex of buildings contains classrooms and seminar rooms, a 200-seat auditorium, and advanced undergraduate teaching labs, as well as chemistry research laboratories and facilities. The research facilities include extensive shop facilities, outstanding computer facilities, and state-of-the-art research instrumentation. Support for these facilities is provided by a high-level support staff, including Ph.D. chemists in the positions of Director of NMR Spectroscopy, Director of Computational Chemistry, and Director of X-Ray Facilities.

Research Instrumentation

Major research instruments of particular note are listed below. Equipment is located in Wright-Rieman Laboratories and the Chemistry & Chemical Biology Building. However, some instruments belonging to chemistry faculty with joint appointments are located in the Waksman Institute of Microbiology, the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, and the Serin Physics Laboratory.

Lasers and Spectrophotometers

Supersonic jet and molecular beam apparatuses; nanosecond laser flash photolysis system; diode-array stop-flow spectrophotometer; temperature-programmable ORD-CD spectropolarimeters; temperature-controlled fluorescence spectrophotometer; low-temperature FTIR spectrophotometers; high resolution UV/Visible and Raman spectrophotometers; YAG, excimer, and tunable dye lasers. Magnetic resonance instrumentation includes 300, 400, 500, two 600, 700, 800 MHz multinuclear NMRs with 2-D and 3-D capabilities; ESR spectrometers.

Surface Analysis Equipment

Ultrahigh vacuum surface analysis systems with facilities for Auger, photoelectron (XPS & UPS), and electron energy loss (HREELS) spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, low energy electron diffraction (LEED), electron stimulated desorption ion angular distribution (ESDIAD) measurements, low energy ion scattering, and He atom scattering; scanning tunneling microscopes; atomic force microscopes.

Thermochemical Instrumentation

Stopped-flow isothermal mixing calorimeter; hypersensitive isothermal titration calorimeter; pressure-variable differential scanning calorimeter; batch, titration, and differential scanning calorimeters.

Other Major Equipment

SQUID magnetometer; GC/quadrupole mass spectrometers; inductively coupled plasma (ICP) mass spectrometer; automated DNA and peptide synthesizers; high-performance liquid chromatographs; HPLC/quadrupole ion trap mass spectrometer with ESI ion source; atomic force microscope.

Computer Facilities

The computer and molecular graphics facilities used by the students and faculty of the chemistry program provide the necessary resources for the several computationally intensive research programs. The CCB's computer facilities consist of a diverse mix of hardware, with the principal cluster consisting of about 1400 cores (175 nodes) of 2.2 and 2.8 GHz AMD x86-64 dual-quad processors. Associated network hardware facilitates connectivity for the entire building, providing access to these resources as well as the rest of the internet.

Faculty and students in the chemistry department participate in the Rutgers High Performance Computing Project which provides local support for the use of massively parallel computers at National Supercomputer Centers.

Chemistry-Physics Machine Shop

The combined Chemistry-Physics Machine Shop is located in the Serin Physics Laboratory. For those who wish to do some of their own instrument fabrication, a self-service machine shop is available.