Departement of Chemistry - University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (BOKU), Austria

Description of the Department of Chemistry:
With a staff of 65 people, the department of chemistry serves as a central unit in teaching basic and advanced chemistry within all curricula of BOKU university. Research activities are focussed on the biotechnology of proteins and glycans, synthesis and characterization of complex oligosaccharides, the chemistry of renewable materials, especially cellulose, hemicelluloses and extractives, the chemistry of antioxidants, and competence in state-of-the-art analytical instrumentation (element speciation and ultra-trace analysis).

Description of the polysaccharide research activities:

• Chemical synthesis of complex carbohydrates: Synthesis of microbial oligosaccharides and Cellulose/hemicellulose model compounds (cellodextrins, oxidized and isotopically labelled derivatives)
• Advanced cellulose and pulp characterization: Mw profiles of carbonyl and carboxyl groups (size exclusion chromatography combined with group-selective fluorescence labelling), release and identification of trace chromophores on pulps, fibers and cellulose derivatives, chemical analysis of pulps and historic paper documents.
• Characterization of cellulose solvents: side reactions, byproducts, cellulose degradation, solution structure, stabilization of Lyocell spinning dopes
• Structural changes of celluloses and cellodextrins upon dissolution: characterization of swelling and dissolution on a molecular level, changes in the H-bond network (labelled solvents and cellulose models, crystallography, NMR techniques)
• NMR spectroscopy: structure elucidation of bacterial glycans and biosynthetic intermediates
• Molecular modeling

Main pieces of equipments:
Spectroscopy: 300 MHz (inverse probehead for 1H, 13C, 15N, 31P) and 400 MHz NMR spectrometer with HR-MAS probe, two high-resolution ICP mass spectrometers (Finnigan MAT, incl. Laser ablation), MALDI-TOF (Biorad) and QTOF mass spectrometer (Waters-micromass Q-TOF GLOBAL), EPR spectrometer (Jeol), FT-IR spectrometer (Bruker Equinox 55), CD spectrometer, fluorimeter (Hitachi F-4500), Stopped-flow fluorimeter
Chromatography / Electrophoresis: GPC (Dionex) with MALLS / RI / Fluorescence / UV-DAD detection, Capillary electrophoresis with UV-DAD detection (Agilent), HPLC systems (Dionex), FPLC systems, GC systems, GC-MS (Agilent)
Isotope laboratory (C2), clean room facilities for element speciation studies

Address:
BOKU, Dept. of Chemistry
Muthgasse 18
A 1190 Vienna, AUSTRIA
Web site: www.chemie.boku.ac.at