The Science Centre: world-class facilities to further your future

Home to all our science teaching and research, the centre will stage events and exhibitions, showcase interactive displays and drive scientific debate.

With state-of-the-art laboratories, it will encourage more and more students to become great scientists of the future.

With key resources to assist business and industry, it will also be known as a centre of excellence.

What’s in the Science Centre?

Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM)  – JEOL JSM-6619V

Is a low vacuum, high performance SEM for fast characterisation and imaging of fine structures on both small and large samples. A large sample chamber allows for irregularly shaped items to be imaged and chemically analysed.  The SEM is widely used in all research fields and industrial applications.  It routinely images several hundred times greater resolution than an optical microscope allowing for detailed measures including 3D measurement from stereo images.

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) – JEOL ECX(A) 400

One of the fundamental techniques for molecular identification, NMR has key uses in chemical research, biochemistry, pharmaceutical chemistry, polymer science, agricultural chemistry and medicine. It utilises the NMR signal which is a natural physical property of certain atomic nuclei, each of which has a different NMR signal frequency, which can then be used to determine molecular structure and dynamics resulting in a complete 3D structure of molecules in solution and solid state.

X Ray Diffraction (XRD) – Bruker D8 ADVANCE with DAVINCI design

Is an all purpose X-ray analyzer which can be configured for all powder diffraction applications, including phase identification, quantitative phase analysis, micro-structure and crystal structure analysis, residual stress and texture investigations. The DAVINCI design allows for fully automatic component recognition with conflict detection and fully automatic instrument configuration.

Raman Microscope

Named after Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Rāman (1888 – 1970) the technique utilises the scattering of light from a laser to give information on the molecular structure of compounds. Modern adaptations are used to investigate  photoluminescence of materials of relevance to renewable energy and to map the distribution of active compounds within a mixture in the pharmaceutical industry and in forensic applications.

College laboratories and learning suites

These facilities have been designed to accommodate the practical elements of the Science A level provision for Stoke-on-Trent 6th form college in biology, chemistry and physics, and the current science curriculum of the Stoke-on-Trent College, including pharmacy studies

Seminar rooms

There are a number of seminar rooms within the Science Centre fully equipment with the latest AV provision

Biomechanics and Gait Analysis laboratory

The infrastructure supporting clinical biomechanics and footwear research comprises a fully equipped laboratory to study the performance of human movement. In addition to a state of the art 3D movement analysis system and associated software, this lab has the ability to measure muscle activation (using surface electromyography) and performance (dynamometers), balance and posture (pressure mat based systems and force plates), 2D ultrasound, thermal imaging (useful to study interfaces between patients and devices or footwear), in-shoe measurement systems and a Universal Testing Machine. The subject areas that thus specialist laboratory caters to range from human performance measurement, medical technology to ergonomics.

Lecture Theatre/s

Have a combined seating capacity of 240, the one theatre can be split further into 2 (120) each with their own dedicated AV provision or combined.

Renewable Energy laboratory

The renewable energy lab comprises three elements:

Telecomms laboratory

With the aid of state-of-art equipment the telecoms laboratory facilitates the demonstration of the entire task involved in communication systems, such as source encoding and decoding, channel coding and decoding, modulation and demodulation, wire-connected and wireless channel modelling and equalisation.  Resources include instructional modelling system, oscilloscopes and spectrum analysers.

Cartography laboratory

This laboratory has been developed to support the specialist GIS (Geographical information systems) software and applications.  Dynamic, flexible learning space for grouped based activities that can be reconfigured for a range of learning styles within this area

Environmental laboratory

Supports ecology, physical geography and environmental work.  Within the laboratory there are a suite of specialised rooms including insectaries, cold room facility and an Ozone research facility.  We also have a dedicated environmental chamber located on the ground floor, which can simulate varying weather conditions for research applications

Human Biosciences laboratory

Psychology Human Science suite

Comprise a suite of three customised laboratories designed to operate singly or in combination, specialism’s include EEG, pain and cardiovascular experimentation

Molecular and Biomedical Science laboratory

Purpose-built 90-seat laboratory to accommodate work in microbiology, biochemistry and molecular biology.  Supported by a suite of specialised rooms including DNA sequencing, tissue culture, cat II microbiology room and autoclaving facility

Clinical Psychology

This academic programme is run in partnership between Staffordshire and Keele universities, the NHS and practising clinical psychologists within Shropshire and Staffordshire, to train highly competent clinical psychologists, focusing on the impact of society and context upon psychological wellbeing, with an emphasis on reflective practice.

Forensic and Crime Science laboratories

Include specialist criminalistic facilities including AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems), visual comparators (document analysis), comparator microscopes (ballistic comparison) plus an analytical suite of instrumentation for chemical analysis including UV-VIS, GC-MS, SEM and so on.

Counselling suite

Specialised suite of rooms, with inbuilt recording and viewing facilities to analyse and develop counselling skills in specialism such as Psychotherapuetic counselling

Cognitive suites/Observation suites

Purpose-built observation suite of rooms with remote recording facilities through state of the art AV systems supporting students and psychology research.

Coffee Lab and Exhibition Space

A great place to meet, catch up and relax, our ground floor Coffee Lab – run by Costa Coffee - offers a wide choice of quality teas, coffees, refreshments and snacks.

The ground floor is also home to Events and Exhibition space where different activities, displays, discussions, talks and science-themed debates will take place throughout the year.