State
of the art facilities are available for food processing, sensory testing,
nutritional analyses, health screening, and chemical/microbial water quality
analyses.
Facilities, Equipment, and Other Resources in Civil and Environmental
Engineering
The Environmental and Water Resources Engineering Program at
Virginia Tech maintains 20,000 ft2 of laboratory space in its
Durham Hall and Hancock Hall Facilities. Two full time analytical chemists are
on staff to train and assist researchers.
Analytical instrumentation in the Durham laboratories that are
primarily used for both water and air quality analyses includes:
- six Hewlett Packard gas chromatographs with a range of
detection systems (including FID, ECD, N/P, and H2) and other
assemblies (autosamplers, purge and trap)
- Agilent Technologies GC 6890-MSD (GC-MS)
- Scientific Instrument Services Short Path Thermal
Desorption Model TD-4
- three Dionex ion chromatographs; a Hewlett Packard HPLC
with diode array detection;
- Beckman UV/visible spectrophotometer with sipper cell
- Thermo Electron X-Series inductively coupled plasma with
mass spectrometer (ICP-MS)
- Schimadzu LC with Diode Array, Refractive Index and Mass
Spectrometer Detectors
- Two field portable Hanna multi-probes, Model HI9828, for
water quality analyses
- three constant temperature rooms (5 to 50 oC)
- table top equipment: muffle furnaces; ultrasonicators;
shaker and mixing equlipment; rotary evaporators; microbalance; analytical
balances
- gas analyzers for carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen
oxides, and ozone.
For Water Quality Analysis, there are two (1000 ft2 and
625 ft2) laboratories for setting up experiments. Routine equipment
includes pH meters, conductance meters, table-top spectrophotometers (SPEC 20),
balances, microscopes, extractors, glassware, autoclaves, hoods, ovens,
stirrers, heaters, incubators, flowmeters, hygrometers, ISCO automatic
samplers, swing psychrometers, thermohumidigraphs, personal sampling pumps. The
laboratory space provides bench tops, hoods, sinks, temperature controlled
rooms, walk-in refrigerators, centrifuges, and storage space necessary to
perform experimental research.
For Air Quality Analysis, there is 400 ft2 of
laboratory and computing space in Durham Hall and a shared 2500 ft2 laboratory
dedicated to studies of Nanoscience and Technology of the Environment in the
Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science building. Table 1 lists
the laboratory's equipment for the analysis of gases and particles, and the
laboratory also has numerous filter holders, diffusion denuders, primary flow
calibrators, mass flow controllers, and vacuum pumps.
Facilities, Equipment, and Other Resources in Food Science &
Technology
The Food Science and Technology program is housed in two
buildings: Food Science and Technology Building (FST) and the Human and
Agricultural Biosciences Building 1 (HABB1), which opened in 2014.
Additional research labs are located in the Integrated Life Sciences Building
(ILSB) in the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center (CRC), the Virginia
Seafood Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Hampton and the Eastern
Shore Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Painter. The 93,500
square foot LEED-certified HABB1 building is designed to incorporate open
workspaces and communal areas for faculty, students and industry to work
collaboratively. Research areas include pilot plants, laboratories,
support facilities and a sensory/flavor testing suite with camera-equipped
individual sensory panel booths and conference rooms. The pilot plants
feature flexible high-bay equipment areas for use in the development of
scale-up operations and process/packaging engineering systems.
Food Science Building (FST)
- Administration and faculty,
staff, and grad student offices
- Classrooms and teaching
laboratories
- Packaging and processing pilot
plant
- Research laboratories
- Product Development and sensory
evaluation laboratory
- Research winery and enology
laboratory
- Analytical Services Lab
- High hydrostatic pressure
processing laboratory
Human
and Agricultural Biosciences Building 1 (HABB1)
- Faculty, staff, and graduate
offices
- Conference, team meeting, and
seminar rooms
- Research laboratories
- Sensory evaluation suite
- Food processing and packaging
pilot plant
- Food safety pilot plant (BSL2)
Facilities, Equipment, and Other Resources in Human Nutrition, Foods and
Exercise
HNFE occupies space in Wallace Hall, War Memorial
Hall, the Integrated Life Science Building at the Corporate Research
Center, and VT Riverside in Roanoke. The Laboratory for Eating Behaviors and
Weight Management, the Dietary Assessment Laboratory, the Metabolic Kitchen,
and the Food and Nutrition Policy Laboratory reside in Wallace Hall. The
Integrated Life Sciences Building houses researchers from diverse backgrounds
including, but not limited to, virology, biology, nutritional biochemistry,
genetics, foods science, and behavioral science. The Molecular
Nutrition, Muscle Function, and Muscle Metabolism laboratories can be found
here as well as groups working on the molecular aspects of health, nutrition,
and disease, including genetic determinants of obesity and the prevention of
cancer, diabetes, and hypertension. This research is performed in laboratories
equipped with modern molecular and cell biology instruments and tools for
cellular and animal research. The building also houses equipment for the
metabolic phenotyping core that allows for determination of body composition,
whole body energy metabolism, glucose and insulin tolerance, analysis of
metabolites, and more. Furthermore, core facilities for quantitative real-time
PCR, cell culture, radio-labeled substrate metabolism, mitochondrial function,
histology, confocal microscopy, and flow cytometry are also located in the
building.
The
Human Integrative Physiology laboratory is located in War Memorial
Hall and provides the infrastructure for clinical studies requiring
measurements of cardiovascular structure and function, submaximal and maximal
exercise performance, body composition (DEXA), resting and exercise energy
expenditure and substrate metabolism, and collection and processing of tissue
and blood samples.
University Facilities Available
- Resources are available through fee facilities for machine,
electrical, and glass blowing.
- ICTAS Nanoscale Characterization and Fabrication Laboratory
for surface characterization which provides access to advanced equipment
for electron microscopy, optical microscopy, and several spectroscopic
techniques training for students and researchers in the use of the lab's
instrumentation . This is a fee facility.
- Learning Technologies Digital Media Center and Innovation
Space which is a multimedia computer lab open to the students, faculty, and
staff of Virginia Tech, as well as the local general public, with the mission
of providing assistance through free and open access to software, hardware, and
specially-trained staff. Includes access to still and video equipment, sound
recording and processing, image and sound digital manipulation.
- Video Conferencing Facilities- 15 video conferencing sites
available on & off campus.
- Conference room, office
space/office equipment/computer facilities.
- Student
office space in former dormitory; available for office or research.
