[Week 8]: We're Ready to Go!
At long las t, the final bit of equipment has arrived! Dr. Hamdan and I will be going to the field next week to collect samples!
I feel like I have been waiting for this for so long, I'm very excited. We will be our there all day long, so I'll have to pack quite a bit of water and food. While I've had people wonder why something like this requires so much planning, Dr. Hamdan is an awesome (and meticulous) scientist so we're going to make sure we do it right.
Furthermore, for my Nanotechnology class, I have to conduct a final project. With Dr. Ed Ong's permission I will analyze some soil and a low caliber cartridge from the field. This will be done using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). This awesome device allows me to view a specimin on the nanometer scale and utilizing different intensities on a laser, I can view different compositions of inorganic samples. While ICP- AES is far more superior (and the main form of analysis for this research), it will be useful to be able to view the elemental make-up of the samples through the SEM.
There is a bit of preparation required to view a sample in a SEM. I will need to ensure the cartridge has no primer or explosive left inside. Furthermore, it will need to be vacuum dried in a special oven in the chemistry lab building. This will probably take me a couple hours to ensure I have prepared it properly.
All in all, I'm excited to be done with the preparation phase, and finally get my hands dirty! I can save and upload images and videos of my samples on such a microscopic level and I can't be more excited!
See you soon!
RJ
I feel like I have been waiting for this for so long, I'm very excited. We will be our there all day long, so I'll have to pack quite a bit of water and food. While I've had people wonder why something like this requires so much planning, Dr. Hamdan is an awesome (and meticulous) scientist so we're going to make sure we do it right.
Furthermore, for my Nanotechnology class, I have to conduct a final project. With Dr. Ed Ong's permission I will analyze some soil and a low caliber cartridge from the field. This will be done using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). This awesome device allows me to view a specimin on the nanometer scale and utilizing different intensities on a laser, I can view different compositions of inorganic samples. While ICP- AES is far more superior (and the main form of analysis for this research), it will be useful to be able to view the elemental make-up of the samples through the SEM.
There is a bit of preparation required to view a sample in a SEM. I will need to ensure the cartridge has no primer or explosive left inside. Furthermore, it will need to be vacuum dried in a special oven in the chemistry lab building. This will probably take me a couple hours to ensure I have prepared it properly.
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| This Sputter Coater sprays a fine grain of gold over all the samples, to assist viewing in the SEM. |
All in all, I'm excited to be done with the preparation phase, and finally get my hands dirty! I can save and upload images and videos of my samples on such a microscopic level and I can't be more excited!
See you soon!
RJ
That is cool, I am really interested in what you will be doing?m What kind of samples will you be collecting, like where are you collecting the soil from? USing the SEM is a good idea because you will be able to see a little better what is going on your samples at the nano spectrum. It is great that you will get the opportunity to such a thing. Good luck!
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