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Home About Curtin Learning and teaching Science & Engineering School of Molecular and Life Sciences Our facilities

Our facilities

The School of Molecular and Life Sciences has established an enviable suite of facilities to conduct research and teaching, allowing staff and students to access world-class facilities for their work and study, including the Resources and Chemistry Precinct.

Chemistry

Find out more about the School of Molecular and Life Sciences chemistry facilities.

Environment and Agriculture

We offer a range of specialised laboratories and purpose-built facilities in the area of environment and agriculture.

Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry

The following facilities are available:

The following facilities are available in our teaching laboratories:

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

The following facilities are available:

Scanning Probe Microscopy

The Scanning Probe Microscopy Facility consists of instruments that provide very high resolution, three dimensional surface topography on an increasing variety of samples and are powerful tools for surface examination.

The Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) uses the sense of touch and measures the topography by mechanically moving a sharp probe across the sample to “feel” the contours of the surface in a manner similar to a phonograph stylus tracing the grooves of a record. Moreover, it can operate under liquids, including the corrosive solutions frequently encountered in industry.

The instruments available are as follows:

Digital Instruments NanoScope IIIE

Digital Instruments Dimension 3000

Molecular Imaging PicoAFM – atomic force microscope

Molecular Imaging PicoSTM – scanning tunnelling microscope

Nikon Optiphot2 optical microscope

Thermal Characterisation

The thermal characterisation facilities, have provided a thermal analysis service to industry for well over two decades. The Laboratory possesses a range of thermal analysis equipment capable of analysing materials which range from cements to polymers and from minerals to phase change materials over temperatures ranging from -50 to 1500 °C.

Techniques Available

Materials Analysed

The range of materials which can be characterised by thermal analysis is large and continues to increase. Consequently we have provided a service to a number of significant Western Australian industries including producers of cement, alumina, pigments, ceramics, nickel, gold, pharmaceuticals, polymers and heat storage liquids as well as to consultant engineers and chemists.

Some Applications of Thermal Analysis

These are merely a sample of thermal analysis applications developed. Any material which undergoes a change of mass, energy or appearance during a controlled thermal program can, theoretically, be analysed by thermal methods.

Vibrational and Electronic Spectroscopy

The following facilities are available in the area of vibrational and electronic spectroscopy:

The following facilities are available in our teaching laboratories:

Other Thermal Analysis Sites

Additional Analytical Instrumentation

The following facilities are also available:

Resources and Chemistry Precinct

The Resources and Chemistry Precinct is home to Curtin’s state-of-the-art chemistry laboratory facilities.

The precinct provides a world-class setting for an array of research activities ranging from fundamental ‘blue sky’ investigations, to those directly related to the biotechnology, chemical, minerals, energy and resources sectors. Curtin supports chemistry research activities in the following areas:

Chemistry also hosts the:

Laboratories

Waste Management and Disposal

Storage

Research Laboratories

Environment & Agriculture has 10 research laboratories in Building 311 for molecular biology, plant growth, disease management and ecology, animal physiology and microbiology.

Four molecular biology laboratories are for communal use with laboratory space allocated twice yearly. Another two Molecular Biology laboratories are rated for quarantine containment level 1 (QC1) studies and have state of the art real time PCR machines and bench top DNA sequencing systems.

Equipment available include dissecting and stereo microscopes, biological and chemical safety hoods, seed germination cabinets, drying ovens, a furnace, -80°C freezers, respirometry and plethysmography systems, protein and DNA gel apparatus.

Plant growth facilities

Plant growth facilities are available for teaching and research available in both Building 311 and in the large Field Trial Area 126.

Building 311 has a rooftop glasshouse which is mainly used for teaching purposes. There is also research laboratory with plant growth light benches and two Conviron controlled environment plant growth systems.

The Field Trial Area 126 is at the south end of the Bentley campus and is used for Teaching and Research programs. It houses a six room glasshouse, four hoop houses, a poly house, a disease nursery, over 1000m2 of growing area with bird exclusion netting and a specialised Conviron facility with two Convirons and three plant growth rooms with light benches. This facility and two of the glasshouse bays are able to be certified for physical and quarantine containment levels PC2 and QC2.

Curtin Aquatic Research Laboratories (CARL)

Building 611 at Technology Park houses the Curtin Aquatic Research Laboratory and the Ecotoxicology Laboratory.

CARL has three 50 tonne recirculating aquaculture systems for seawater, freshwater and inland saline water and a 70-tonne mesocosm tank which can replicate most aquatic ecosystems through manipulation of temperature, lighting regimes and habitat structures for ecosystem and behavioural studies. The aquatic systems are controlled by a central computer system which monitors the conditions, feeding and other activities. Quarantine, live feed and algae culture rooms are available, as are numerous aquariums, tanks and equipment for housing any aquatic organism.

The Ecotoxicology Laboratory specialises in evaluation of the health status of aquatic organisms in contaminated environments. The facilities include multiple aquariums for toxicological testing, cryogenic storage, refrigerated high speed centrifuges, electrophoresis equipment, spectrofluorescence and spectrophotometry readers and scanners and microplate readers.

Horticulture Research Laboratory (HRL)

Building 611 at Technology Park also houses the HRL which investigates post-harvest treatments of fruit, vegetables and flowers to increase quality and storage life.

Facilities include three temperature controlled rooms, six temperature and humidity control cabinets, a Hunter Lab ColourFlex, UV/VIS Spectrophotometer, a Servomex Infra-Red CO2 and O2 Gas Analyser, two Agilent Gas Chromatography instruments -6890N, a Waters HPLC, a Lloyds texture analyser and a digital refractometer.