The Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois

Chemistry Buildings

The Department of Chemistry is housed in four buildings: William Albert Noyes Laboratory (NL), Roger Adams Laboratory (RAL), Chemistry Annex, and the Chemical and Life Sciences Laboratory. The administrative offices and Chemistry Library are housed in Noyes Lab, and service facilities and technical shops are found in both RAL and NL. Most general chemistry laboratories are in the Chemistry Annex. The Chemistry Annex is dedicated completely to undergraduate education in the chemical sciences. Research laboratories for inorganic, physical, and materials chemistry are housed in the Chemical and Life Sciences Laboratory, and those for analytical, organic, and biological chemistry are located in Roger Adams Lab. In addition, a few of the Department's research groups also have laboratories in the Materials Research Laboratory and Beckman Institute, both of which are interdisciplinary facilities of the campus.

Research Support Facilities - School of Chemical Sciences

Some of the greatest assets to researchers at Illinois are its extensive research facilities. The School of Chemical Sciences provides the nation's best and most extensive service facilities for research and education in chemistry. Each service facility has its own full time staff providing expert technical assistance. They range from facilities that maintain advanced scientific equipment to facilities that provide graphics and computer support. A more detailed description of the different facilities follows below. Click on the facility name to be taken to the School of Chemical Sciences site for more details.

• Cell Media Facility - provides the materials required to grow and work with bacteria, yeast, insect cells, and animal cells. 
• Computer Applications and Network Services (CANS) - provides assistance with all network issues and advanced software packages.
• Computer Electronics Electrical Services (CEES) - provides assembly, repair, and maintenance of computers and other electronic equipment.
• Graphic Services - provides a range of conventional photographic, electronic imaging, technical drawing, and graphic design services.
• Glass Shop - provides glassware repairs, and design and fabrication of customized glass equipment.
• High-Throughput Screening Facility - assists academic researchers in developing and performing high-throughput screens of chemical libraries
• Machine Shop - provides design and machinging of customized equipment, especially ultra-high vacuum, high pressure, optical and mechanical equipment.
• Mass Spectrometry Center - provides varied services with capabilities in all modern methods of organic mass spectrometry.
• Microanalysis Laboratory - provides elemental analysis (CHN, ICP, titration) and thermal analysis (TGA, DSC). 
• NMR Laboratory - the finest academic laboratory in the country in terms of the availability and types of services offered.
• X-Ray Diffraction Laboratory - a valuable asset for single crystal and material analysis.

Chemistry Library

The Chemistry Library, located on the first floor of Noyes Laboratory in room 170, is one of the finest chemistry research libraries in the country. Library holdings include more than 70,000 volumes, and feature more than 500 journal titles and 300 monographic serials covering all aspects of chemistry, chemical engineering and biochemistry. In addition, online access to all journals published by the American Chemical Society, Wiley, and the Royal Society of Chemistry is now available, as is 24-hour online access to chemistry course reserve materials. The library provides three access points to Chemical Abstracts: SciFinder Scholar, CA on CD, and print, and makes available a wide array of other databases, including Web of Science, Beilstein/Gmelin, and Current Contents.

University Library

The University Library's resources for augmenting a chemistry student's technical education are outstanding. No state university and only two other American colleges and universities have more extensive collections. The present library collection totals more than nine million volumes. Over 20,000 periodicals and newspapers are being received currently. The library's bibliographical facilities comprise a general catalog of more than four million entries, printed catalogs of libraries, national and trade bibliographies of all countries for which such works have been issued, bibliographies of special subjects, and similar aids. For the sciences and technology, there are specialized libraries in the fields of agriculture, biological sciences, chemistry, engineering, geology, mathematics, and physics. Each of these libraries is readily available to all University staff and students.

Arnold O. and Mabel M. Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology

The Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology is an interdisciplinary research institute devoted to basic research in the physical sciences, computation, engineering, biology, behavior, and cognition. The institute's primary mission is to foster interdisciplinary work of the highest quality in an environment that transcends many of the limitations inherent in traditional university organizations and structures.

Research at the Beckman Institute is focused around three main themes:

• biological intelligence, which ranges from biochemical, molecular, and cellular studies of how neurons work, through integrative and computational neuroscience, to cognitive science;
• human-computer intelligent interaction, which includes artificial intelligence, robotics, computer vision, cognitive science, human perception and performance, and virtual reality experiments; and
• molecular and electronic nanostructures, in which programs range from computational electronics and scanning tunneling microscopy, to semiconductor nanostructures and photonics, to efforts to synthesize and characterize new materials.

Nearly 1,000 researchers from 20 UIUC departments as far-ranging as psychology, computer science, and biochemistry, comprise 19 Beckman Institute groups, working within and across these overlapping areas.

Microelectronics Laboratory

The Microelectronics Laboratory is a multidisciplinary research facility in the College of Engineering that houses advanced equipment to support research in photonics, microelectronics, nanotechnology, and biotechnology. The research activities that are facilitated by the laboratory can be divided into four areas: optoelectronics and photonic systems, microelectronics for wireless communications, microelectromechanical systems, and nanobiosystems.

The Microelectronics Laboratory is one of the nation's largest and most sophisticated university-based facilities for semiconductor, nanotechnology, and biotechnology research. It contains 8,000 square feet of class 100 and class 1,000 clean-room laboratory space and state-of-the-art ultra-high-speed optical and electrical device and circuit measurements. The laboratory currently houses the DARPA-funded Center for Bio-Optoelectronic Sensors and Systems.

National Center for Supercomputing (NCSA)

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has an international reputation for innovative applications in high-performance computing, visualization, and desktop software. In 1993, NCSA Mosaic, the Web browser that launched the multibillion-dollar dot.com industry, was developed at the center. NCSA is the leading site for the National Computational Science Alliance (Alliance), conducting research at the forefront of supercomputing technology, high-speed networking, and virtual reality.

NCSA's computing resources include a 1,024-processor SGI Origin2000 array, a 256-processor NT supercluster, and an HP-Convex Exemplar X-Class.

The Biotechnology Center

The Biotechnology Center is an interdisciplinary program that includes 127 faculty members from across campus, including Chemistry. Its primary mission is to augment research in biotechnology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by

• providing state-of-the-art research services to University of Illinois faculty members and facilitating interdisciplinary research,
• promoting educational, training, and career opportunities for undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows,
• conducting outreach activities for K-12, the public, and corporate clients, and
• creating corporate partnerships in research.

The major research facilities are the W. M. Keck Center for Comparative and Functional Genomics, Flow Cytometry Facility, Immunological Resources Center, and Protein Sciences Facility. In addition, the Biotechnology Center Placement Office provides job placement for advanced-degree students in the biological and biomedical sciences.

Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory (FS-MRL)

The FS-MRL, an interdisciplinary research laboratory dedicated to developing the highest-quality fundamental interdisciplinary programs in materials science, condensed matter physics, and materials chemistry, is a DOE national facility. The FS-MRL provides a highly stimulating environment for a community of scholars from 10 departments, including Chemistry. The physical facility includes 160,000 gross square feet of space in three contiguous buildings.

The theme of the interdisciplinary research carried out in the FS-MRL is nano-scale systems: surfaces, interfaces, and structures. The primary themes are: surface, interface, and thin-film science, nanoscale synthesis and mesoscale engineering, complex materials systems, driven materials systems, biomimetic materials synthesis, and solid-liquid interface science and confined fluids. Within FS-MRL is housed the Center for Microanalysis of Materials (CMM), which contains a complete array of modern nanostructural and nanochemical analytical techniques, including electron microscopy (scanning-, transmission-, and scanning-transmission electron microscopy), scanning probe microscopy, surface microanalysis, x-ray scattering, and ion-beam spectroscopies, as well as synchrotron beam lines at the Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, and at the National Synchrotron Light Source, Brookhaven National Laboratory.