Week 7: Busy Beaver

This week was mainly about getting back on track with experiments. On monday I set up a 1,3 DCP batch with Zn64 to start testing both 1,3 DCP degredation on the liquid-phase GC, as well as product production in the headspace GC. On Tuesday, after the 1 day equilibriation time for the Zn64, I spiked in about 60 uM 1,3 DCP and tested on both GC's. Throughout the week I tested this batch but have yet to see any perceptible degredation. This was to be expected though, due to previous tests that have shown 1,3 DCP degredation by ZVZ to be much slower than Allyl Chloride and TCP.

Also, on Tuesday, I set up a 1,2 DCP batch with Zn64 to be spiked on Wednesday. Testing this batch gave more promising results, with a large decrease in concentration of 1,2 DCP throughout the remainder of the week, as well as a large production of propene. This, too, was expected to lend more obvious results than the 1,3 DCP due to previous experiments.

And that, except for the cleaning of serum vials and input of data on the computer, was basically my life for the whole week. I did get a reprive, though, on Thursday, when some of the interns went to Astoria to the M.E.R.T.S. campus to get an introduction on how CMOP gets its field data from the Columbia estuary. That trip was fairly interesting because we got to see Saturn 1 and learn what all of its components do. I've always like learning how people solve problems, and with the ever changing environment of the river system, its safe to say I learned a fair bit about problem solving for data collection. One of my favorite things was how the glider (I forget its name) that collects data along the coast, corrects its direction every time it surfaces in order to account for the ocean current.