• Question: How has technology change your work?

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      Asked by Ling-Ling to John, Laura, Luke, Rob, Ruth on 15 Jun 2016.
      • Photo: John Fossey

        John Fossey answered on 15 Jun 2016:

        I can work anywhere in the world – so thats a great and a terrible thing at the same time

      • Photo: Robert Williams

        Robert Williams answered on 15 Jun 2016:

        I use equipment that needs a computer to control the various valves, pumps and motors to avoid having a big explosion

      • Photo: Laura Finney

        Laura Finney answered on 15 Jun 2016:

        It has made things a lot easier for us 🙂 We can now use technology to understand what we have made more. Things like mass spectrometry/nmr/IR let us see what we have made without us having to guess using old fashioned chemistry and allows us to find the shapes etc. using Xrays. This makes everything incredibly faster than when they did it years ago.
        We also now have microwaves we can do reactions in and special machines to remove solvents from reactions so we can purify our products easier.

        Computers also let us google and find things much faster than having to go to the library and search through hundreds of books!

        That is just a few examples and I am sure there are many more.

      • Photo: Luke Williams

        Luke Williams answered on 16 Jun 2016:

        I can drown in data much more effectively. So many papers all over the place.

        Also, agree with Laura, half the chemistry I do I wouldn’t be able to identify without a helping hand from technology. Whilst it is not always perfect, it certainly is helpful to have the machine itself suggest what the results mean – makes analysis a lot quicker.

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