Week 3

Week 3! Time is flying by. I can’t believe that I’ve already been here for 3 weeks! I spent a lot of time this week behind the computer doing literature searches. It turns out that there is a much better way to make the electrode than the current PDE we have been using to study manganese dioxide. The materials should be here next week and I should get more comparable results for electrochemical characterization using the new electrode. One of the highlights of the week was surface area scanning of biogenic and synthetic manganese dioxide which involves liquid nitrogen which is always a blast to use. Most of the data I’ve collected still needs to be analyzed, so I’ll have kinetics results next week.

On Friday Vanessa planned an awesome trip for us in the gorge. We went to Crown Point, Multnomah Falls, and toured Bonneville dam (pictures below). I’ve been through the gorge many times, but haven’t been to Crown Point since I was probably about 8 and never had toured Bonneville dam. I never knew that every fish traveling up the river was counted and passed through a 2’ wide channel. It was a fun trip and thanks again Vanessa for taking us!

On a tangent, I discovered that Whole Foods carries golden kiwi fruit. I spent a semester in New Zealand and became addicted to these things while down there. I’ve been trying to find them since I got back the U.S. but haven’t been able to…until now! They are just as delicious as they were on the other side of the world and for those of you that have never tried them, I’d highly recommend this sweeter variation of the green kiwi fruit.

Goals for next week: analyze caffeine data, make new electrode (if reagents arrive in time), synthesize fresh manganese dioxide.