The Continuum Facility is hosted by the Institute of Chemical Sciences in the William Perkin Building at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh – in addition to flow systems and analytical instrumentation, a full synthetic laboratory for sample preparation and reaction work-up and purification is available. The following flow systems and analytical instrumentation are included in the facility:

Flow Systems

A Vapourtec E-series system equipped with 4 peristaltic pumps, plus dedicated heated, copper-lined or photochemical reactors.

An Elveflow system.

Analytical Instruments

Nanalysis NMReady 60

Delivered in September 2018, this table-top NMR spectrometer operates at 60MHz for ¹H only.  Simple to use and powered by a permanent magnet it requires no cryogens and is fully mobile; the residual magnetic field does not extend beyond the casing and so the instrument may be used in almost any environment.  Perfect for outreach to schools and industry!  The ’60’ may also be equipped with a flow cell to enable in-situ reaction monitoring by ¹H NMR.  Bookable via the U-Lab online booking platform.

Oxford Instruments X-Pulse

The most recent addition to the NMR family, installed in May 2021 is the X-Pulse, a tuneable multinuclear benchtop 60MHz (for ¹H) NMR spectrometer. X-Pulse features pulse-field gradients enabling a range of advanced one- and two-dimensional NMR experiments including solvent suppression, relaxation time measurements, COSY, J-resolved and HSQC sequences. In addition, users may write their own sequences in Python, greatly expanding the range of potential experiments available. A dedicated flow cell facilitates in-line, real-time reaction monitoring, which, when coupled with multinuclear capability creates opportunity for a range of ‘monitoring’ approaches via a variety of elements including ³¹P, ¹⁹F, ²⁹Si and ¹¹B. We also work directly with instrument suppliers to develop new applications:

Agilent HPLC.

Shimadzu GPC.

Continuous Purification

Interchim Puriflash – we have recently developed the first example of genuine continuous normal-phase chromatography as reported in J. Org. Chem..