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Some Assembly Required

Field engineers Rob Harper (right) and Bob Rich from Thermo Fisher Scientific pour liquid helium as they install a Fourier-transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometer (FT-ICR MS) in the Fye Lab. The new room-sized mass spectrometer can measure the molecular mass of many compounds simultaneously with very high precision and accuracy. It will be used by WHOI scientists to identify and characterize large organic compounds produced and used by marine microbes and to detect petroleum products or pharmaceuticals in the environment. Marine chemists Liz Kujawinski and Chris Reddy led a group (from the Marine Chemistry & Geochemistry and Biology departments) that was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to purchase the new equipment, which will be the foundation for a new facility dedicated to high-resolution mass spectrometry in the ocean sciences. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)