High Value Manufacturing and Services Research Fund Success

25 Sep 2012 - 13:36:00 in Research
School of ECS senior lecturer Dr Robin Dykstra and his VUW colleagues Dr Petrik Galvosas (SCPS) and Dr Paul Teal (ECS) were awarded a grant of $880,000 per annum for 4 years from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's 2012 science investment round, the High Value Manufacturing and Services Research Fund. The grant will be used to support research in the field of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). This research will also be a collaboration with Massey University, New Zealand high-tech export company Magritek Ltd, and RWTH Aachen University in Germany.

The aim of the research is to progress nuclear magnetic resonance measurement science, analysis methods, magnet design and NMR electronic engineering. It is expected to lead to new hybrid analysis tools that will enhance process efficiency and quality, and the development of new export products in the core analysis, industrial processing, medical diagnostics, and pharmaceutical industries. Growth in these sectors will have significant benefits for associated New Zealand businesses.

The research will have four main areas of focus. The first is chemical spectroscopy, with the aim of making NMR spectroscopy more accessible to general chemists for routine measurement, and also developing the capacity for online chemical processing. The second is rock-core analysis, improving measurement and analysis for the oil/gas and geothermal industries. The third area is cancerous tissue detection, through development of NMR based hardware and methods that utilise the different morphology of cancerous tissue. The fourth area is Rheo-NMR product enhancement and protein structure determination method, through applying Rheo-NMR hardware and protocols to the measurement of Residual Dipolar Couplings.

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