Report on NMR System Use in the Undergraduate Teaching Program at Long Beach City College

Magritek report on the use of their Spinsolve Benchtop NMR spectrometer in the undergraduate teaching program at Long Beach City College under the leadership of Dr Marlon Jones.

Dr Marlon Jones is an Instructor of Chemistry in the Physical Science Department at Long Beach City College (LBCC). His teaching goals for the Organic Chemistry course at LBCC are to ensure that students have a fundamental understanding of the basic aspects of NMR and have the ability to interpret basic NMR spectral data.

Dr Jones explained: "For several years, we did not have an NMR on campus. I felt that our students suffered because NMR seemed very ‘abstract’ to them. In my opinion, if we are able to start giving spectra to students months before we cover the basic theory behind NMR, the students will see patterns develop and will be curious, engaged and not ‘shell-shocked’ when the theory behind NMR is introduced at a later time."

Speaking of the selection of the Magritek system, Dr Jones continued: "Previous to adding NMR capability, we introduced our students to IR spectroscopy and gas chromatography. When we saw the performance and price of the Spinsolve Benchtop NMR spectrometer from Magritek, we saw our opportunity to fulfil another of our goals. In particular, we were impressed with the durability and robustness of the machine. The range of different applications such as the 2D capability was most important when we came to make our purchase decision."

Magritek's US General Manager, Hector Robert, said: "Marlon's enthusiasm to educate chemistry students in the practical use of NMR matches our goals too. That is to see all undergraduate chemistry students become familiar with the new benchtop NMR capabilities and encouraged to want to use NMR when they move into industry on graduation. We encourage all chemistry teachers to watch the videos by our founder, the late Professor, Sir Paul Callaghan, on the basics of NMR. They are free and available via our web site."