First Days of Research

This week marked the beginning of actual lab work for me. But instead of working on the biodegradalbe polymers project as I had previously thought, I am actually working with another advisor on characterising and comparing various oil-water emulsions and the effect various surfactants have on the physicsl properties of said emulsions. On Monday, I met my new advisor, Emmanuelle Marie and was shown around the labs where I would be working. I met a number of grad students, some just starting their PhD and Masters and some who are on their last year. Instead of working in groups like most MQP's completed abroad, I will be working alone. which is both exciting and just a little bit terrifying at the same time.

In the afternoon, I was shown how to use one of the pieces of equipment I'll be using over the next two months - the tensiometer. The tensiometer is used to measure the surface tension of various liquids and it also has the capacity to determine the interfacial tension forces that is present at the interface between two immiscible (non-mixable) liquids.

The next morning (Tuesday), I arrived early in the morning - a few of us had gotten up at the break of down in order to trek down to the train station and book our train tickets for our weekend trips. In the lab, I began to prepare an emulsion of aqueous modified dextran (a glucose based polysaccharide) and dodecane and learned how to use the high performance particle sizer.  The machine uses light refraction and particle movement to determine the size of the emulsion droplet sizes.  In the afternoon, I prepared some solutions for surface and interfacial tension testing that I'll be doing tomorrow.  I haven't done wet lab work in ages, since organic chemistry lab so things started out a little bumpy and slow but I'm really enjoying the work.  To top it all off, I prepared a cleaning solution referred to as Piranha solution.  It's a mixture of sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide (both very caustic) that's used to remove ANY and ALL organic compounds.  My advisor showed me one of her lab coats which she had spilled some of the solution on and it looked much like swiss cheese.

Tomorrow, my advisor is gone but I've got a list of things I need to do.  It'll be my first day working solo and I'm quite excited!