An assessment day of the Équipex* project of the University of Pau and Pays de l'Adour took place this summer in Pau. Directed by Olivier Donard, former director of IPREM, this project has played an important role in the evolution of UPPA, with the creation of a center of excellence in mass spectrometry (speciation and isotopy), the largest in Europe in this field.
Named MARSS (Mass Spectrometry for Reactivity and Speciation Sciences) and launched in 2012, the project has resulted in original developments in instrumentation with several industrial partners, as well as numerous cutting-edge research projects. The Equipex MARSS was then integrated into UPPA Tech, the university's instrumental services center set up in 2018.
Dirk Schaumlöffel, CNRS/UPPA research director, explains the usefulness of the nanoSIMS spectrometer to Mohamed Amara and Mehran Mostafavi.
Mehran Mostafavi, deputy scientific director of the CNRS National Institute of Chemistry, Younis Hermès, Aquitaine regional delegate of the CNRS, Philippe Sainctavit and Simon Bourdin of the National Research Agency, as well as Mohamed Amara and Franck Métras, former presidents of UPPA, were able to visit our three emblematic spectrometers: the Nu Plasma 1700 (a high-resolution ICP-MS multi-collector), the NanoSIMS, and the TOF-SIMS Tandem-MS.
* Equipex: "Equipment of Excellence" funded by the French government's "Investissements d'Avenir" program and implemented by the ANR.
Olivier Donard and Cécile Courrèges, acting deputy director of IPREM, describe how the TOF-SIMS Tandem-MS works.
