Week 1: The Fun Begins

Bright eyed and eager to roll up my sleeves and get to work (or more accurately roll them down to cover as much skin as possible...safety first!), my first day at CMOP was exciting. I met the other interns, my mentors, had some safety training, and learned more about what I was going to do this summer. In summary, I will be looking at the reaction kinetics of 1,2,3-trichloropropane (TCP) with zero valent zinc (ZVZ); as well as the kinetics of the proposed products of that reaction in order to gain a better idea of the reduction pathway of the human carcinogen, TCP, in the water system.

Due to some difficulties with the gas chromatography machine (GC), and some changes in my project scope, I really didn't get to start experiments until Thursday.

On Thursday, I prepared a experiment, with the help of my frontline mentor Ali, of the GC in order to graph a calibration curve that I could use for measurement of TCP concentrations in future experiments. Towards the end of the day we also prepared a reactor with Zn-64 and allowed it, and a control reactor, to equilibriate overnight. The next morning I spiked in TCP and used the GC to track the disappearance of TCP throughout the day. Unfortunatly, there was not a noticeable reaction until the end of the day when it was time to close shop.

So, my first objective next week will be to run the same experiment, but I will give more time for equillibriation in order to see a reaction that can be noticed in the work day. Fingers crossed.

Until next week,

Doug Meisenheimer