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The Chemical Educator
ISSN: 1430-4171 (electronic version)
Abstract Volume 2
Issue 4 (1997), S1430-4171(97)03140-X
"Do-It-Yourself" Attenuated Total Reflectance Cell Designed and Constructed in a Laboratory Course: A Versatile and Economical Alternative to Commercial Designs
S. Lau, J. Right, K. Stavens, J. Whitaker, Z. Liu, and J. Lauterbach*
Chemistry Department and School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, W. Lafayette, IN 47907
Published online: 3 October 1997
Abstract. An attenuated
total internal reflectance (ATR) cell has been designed and constructed
by a group of four undergraduate and graduate students during an advanced
laboratory course in the School of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University.
Details for the assembly, which utilizes commercially available optical
components, are given in this paper. The cell employs a 45-degree trapezoidal
ZnSe crystal as the ATR element. Both spherical and flat gold-coated mirrors
are used to focus and align the IR beam.
The cell design presented here not only provides practical instrumentation
design and implementation experience for students, it also has four major
advantages important for teaching purposes: a) It can be ported between
different FTIR spectrometers with similar sample-compartment sizes; b)
it provides an economical means for ATR spectroscopy in laboratory courses
as the cost of this cell is less than half the price of similar commercial
cells; c) all optical parts of the cell are easily accessible and visible
for demonstration and adjustment purposes; and d) it can serve as a starting
point for a variety of student experiments.
Key Words: Laboratories and Demonstrations; cell design
(*) Corresponding author. (E-mail: jochen@ecn.purdue.edu)
Article in PDF format (342 KB )
Supporting Materials:
Quicktime movie zip file (2.0 MB) 10.1007/s0089797140b
AVI movie zip file (2.7 MB) 10.1007/s0089797140c
Issue date: October
3, 1997
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