EMU becomes first Michigan university to receive DART mass spectrometer

Wednesday, July 28, 2010 | Source: Concentrate

The first DART mass spectrometer for a Michigan university is heading to Eastern Michigan University, an addition that is making chemistry researchers green with envy across the Midwest.

"The Michigan State Police Lab is in the process of purchasing one now," says Ruth Ann Armitage, an associate professor of chemistry at Eastern Michigan University who quarterbacked the effort to attain the $200,000 National Science Foundation grant for the spectrometer. "I have a friend in the U.S. Customs office in Chicago that said, 'I am so jealous you have one of those."

A DART mass spectrometer provides the shortcut to discovering the chemical makeup of a substance. Currently chemists have to go through an extensive, time-consuming process to learn this. The spectrometer allows them to put the substance in a chamber and get the chemical makeup within a few minutes. For instance, the chemists could put a mystery pill into the spectrometer and know whether it's Vicodin or Viagra or aspirin without the fuss and muss of physically breaking it down.

EMU plans to use the spectrometer to research historical artifacts, looking for chemical clues about life centuries ago. They will be able to put a dish from a primitive culture into the spectrometer and be able to learn the composition of not only the dish but any food residue it contains.

"Finding out what these residues are tells us a lot of about life back then," Armitage says.

Source: Ruth Ann Armitage, an associate professor of chemistry at Eastern Michigan University
Writer: Jon Zemke