St Andrews University opens new chemistry lab

A NEW £1 million chemistry laboratory has opened at Scotland’s oldest university.

The facility at the University of St Andrews in Fife will be used for research and the teaching of crystallography, the science that examines the arrangements of atoms in solids. Picture: TSPL

The facility at the University of St Andrews in Fife will be used for research and the teaching of crystallography, the science that examines the arrangement of atoms in solids.

It will be home to more than 220 researchers from the institution’s school of chemistry and support a further 200 scientists based in Edinburgh.

The newly-named Laboratory for Chemical Crystallography, which university bosses say houses “some of the most sophisticated X-ray technology in the world”, was officially opened by Alex Slawin, professor of chemical crystallography at the institution.

She said: “This is a world-leading facility which places St Andrews at the forefront of the field and enables us to compete with the very best in the world.”

The facility is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.