Facilities
The award of funding from the government's JIF scheme, via the NERC, has enabled extensive refurbishment and adaptation of existing buildings, redesign of laboratory, workshop and office space as well as the purchase of substantial items of new equipment and enhancement of existing facilities. Detailed specification and contact information is available by following the links.
Experimental facilities
- Analysis of liquids and solutions:
State of the art facilities are available for the chemical analysis of virtually all inorganic cations and anions in aqueous solutions, along with organic species. Through very high quality clean room facilities (class 100) many species can be analysed at concentrations down to parts per billion (or even trillion). Equipment includes ICP-MS, ICP-AES, HPLC, GC-MS alongside laboratories for preparation of samples for analysis.
- Analysis of solids (including microanalysis and imaging):
An unparalleled suite of instruments is available for elemental analysis of solids including major and trace elements with spacial resolution at micron or even submicron scales. Solid materials can be imaged, including luminescence studies, compositional variations mapped etc. The Manchester Electron Microprobe Facility (MEMF) contributes to the instruments and expertise available. Facilities include- electron microprobe (analysis at micron resolution including light elements and trace elements): see MEMF.
- scanning electron microscopes (submicron resolution) with EDX analysis (semi quantitative): see MEMF.
- environmental SEM with EDX analysis in which "wet" or volatile (eg. organic, biological) samples can be imaged and analysed at submicron resolution - a particularly important addition to our analysis suite
- laser ablation equipment to facilitate analysis of solids by ICP-MS
- a well established X-ray diffraction laboratory with facilities for routine characterisation of crystalline solids (and for X-ray reflectivity studies of surfaces to establish roughness etc).
- Analysis and imaging of surfaces and interfaces:
A major area of interest concerns chemical analysis and imaging of the surfaces of solids and studies of the solid/liquid interface. X-ray photoelectron (XPS) and Auger Electron Spectrometers provide for chemical analysis of surfaces, and scanning probe microscopes for imaging of surfaces at resolutions from Angstrom through nanometer to micron scales. The latter include UHV AFM and STM, in air/fluid AFM and STM (including environmental and electrochemical cells). Via collaborative funding with UMIST a new high resolution imaging XPS facility is now also available.
- Facilities for synthesis, experimentation and sample preparation:
Within the WRC are laboratories in which minerals, rocks, glasses, and fluids can be synthesised under conditions from room temperature and pressure and up to approx 1500°C and thousands of bars. Experiments can be conducted related to microbiological processes, low and elevated temperature solid/fluid interactions, and kinetics.
There are facilities for the preparation of most types of samples for study using the techniques mentioned above (eg. preparation of thin sections and polished sections of rocks, minerals and even friable soils/sediments; single crystal preparation, ion beam thinning for TEM etc). The WRC also has a mechanical workshop where specialist equipment (eg. reaction cells) can be fabricated, and laboratories for handling of samples such as clays and fine sediments (centrifuges, settling columns, drying ovens etc).
Computational and modelling facilities
An important facility provides a group of computer workstations which operate both independently and as interfaces with High Performance Computing resources owned by the WRC and other local and national facilities. A wide range of modelling and simulation studies are possible from the molecular to the macroscopic scales.
Related facilities
Within the WRC are also facilities for the thermal analysis of materials (DTA, TGA systems), routine optical microscopy, and Mossbauer spectroscopy studies using iron. Parallel developments in isotope sciences based in the Earth Sciences Department will see new High Resolution Multicollector ICP Mass Spectrometer and TOF-SIMS facilities (as well as an established ion probe) equipment. These developments will enable isotopic analysis of a wide range of elements including previously little studied isotopic systems (e.g. Fe, Cu, etc). Through links with the Chemistry Department, there is also access to Raman and Infrared spectrometers (imaging FTIR Microscopy), NMR and ESR. WRC staff have extensive experience working with major national and international facilities, in particular using synchrotron radiation (e.g. Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire, European Synchrotron in Grenoble).