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Week 5

Week 5 of the program involved working in the lab, giving a presentation, listening to others’ presentations, taking a tour of Alltech’s headquarters, and visiting the latino festival in downtown Lexington.

In lab, I got to continue my study of the increase or decrease in outlet flow rate of a membrane as I changed inlet pH. The membrane that I used was the one that I helped make out of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and polyacrylic acid (PAA) earlier in the summer. While it may seem counterintuitive to decrease the outlet flow rate of a membrane, it could come in handy in certain scenarios. For example, if this type of membrane were modified to react with certain substances that flow through it, the ability to slow down the flow through the membrane would provide it with more time to breakdown these substances. One new experiment that I got to experience in lab this week was the measurement of the surface charge of a membrane. To take this measurement, I had to prepare a small sample from one of the membranes that I mentioned above and place it in a machine that measures charge at different pH values by flowing a conductive solution past the membrane. The trend in surface charge that I measured helped me verify that I had included some PAA on the surface of the PVDF membrane. Lastly, I got to form iron particles on the PAA attached to the membrane that I mentioned above (see pictures below). I did this by first exposing the membrane to some different solutions to attach iron ions to the PAA on the membrane. Then, I ran a solution through the membrane that reacted with the iron ions to form uncharged iron particles, which make up the dark areas of the membrane. As always, I would like to thank my mentors and advisors for their help this week!

Before
After

Outside of the lab, I got to participate in some REU-related activities. On Monday, I got to present present an update about the goals, procedures, results, and roadblocks involved with my project. This presentation and the presentation earlier in the summer were my first two presentations in which I had to answer questions from the audience, which was a helpful opportunity that shed a new light on the importance of actively listening to others' feedback and clearly communicating. In addition to presenting, I got to hear about the projects that others are working on, which was intriguing. To cap off the week, I got to visit Alltech, a company with a focus in animal-nutrition products, with my fellow REU students. It was cool to visit their labs, see their beautiful headquarters, and hear about some charitable work that they do.

March 12 Contest intro 1.jpg
Source: https://www.signsofthetimes.com/content/the-2012-international-sign-contest-a-gallop-glory

Aside from lab and REU activities, I went to the Latino Festival in downtown Lexington with some others from the program. It was a fun to hear some music and hang out!

It is hard to believe that this is about the halfway point of the REU program and I look forward to continuing!

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