MRI: Track 3 Acquisition of Helium Recovery Equipment to Support the NMR Facility for Campuswide Research & Education

About This Grant

This award is jointly supported by the Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) and the Division of Chemistry Research Instrumentation programs in response to the solicitation of proposals for equipment that promote the reduced consumption of helium initiated by the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. Stony Brook University is acquiring a helium recovery system to capture and reliquefy helium from five nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometers to support the research of Professors Robert Grubbs, Quinton Bruch, Jeffrey Lipshultz, Jeffrey Gustafson, and Benjamin Hsiao in the areas of organic, inorganic, polymer, medicinal, and materials chemistry as well as more than twenty additional groups with research focuses spanning geochemistry to chemical biology. NMR spectrometers rely on liquid helium to cool superconducting magnets and require regular deliveries to maintain operation. Recently, the global helium supply has experienced increased instability, endangering the use of NMR spectrometers for research and educational tasks. The helium recovery system addresses these challenges by creating a closed loop that captures helium boiloff from the spectrometers and generates new liquid helium through a reliquefication process. The five NMR spectrometers to be supported by the helium recovery system constitute the only spectrometers on campus and are critical to the research of numerous groups across multiple departments at Stony Brook and users from external companies, the training of researchers at all stages for workforce readiness (high school through postdoctoral), and the education of undergraduate students in formal coursework. The five NMR spectrometers supported by this equipment enable research projects including: (1) the discovery of new antifungals and anticancer medicines, (2) studies of catalytic reactions at gold nanoclusters, (3) investigating Martian surface waters for origins-of-life chemistry, (4) the development of PET diagnostics for bacterial infections, (5) investigations of the role of magnesium in Alzheimer’s disease, (6) measuring kinetics and thermodynamics of organometallic transformations, and (7) the development of nanocellulose-based technologies for water remediation. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.