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Week 6

This week consisted of working in lab, meeting with my research group, spending time with my fellow REU students, and heading home for a bit on the weekend.

In lab, I got to see some cool machines in action and make a membrane out of cellulose and polyacrylic acid (PAA). One of the machines that I got to see was a scanning electron microscope (SEM). This SEM also had an energy-dispersive x-ray spectrometer (EDS), which is capable of analyzing the elements present in an SEM image of a membrane sample. During my two visits, I got to see this machine be used to study the amount of iron in a polyvinylidene fluoride-PAA membrane that I loaded with iron last week. One type of EDS analysis that was done on this membrane is mapping, which marks the locations of different elements in an SEM image. Some of the maps of a portion of my membrane that all correspond to the same SEM image are directly below. The carbon and fluorine are both part of PVDF,

Iron

Carbon

Fluorine

while the iron is from the iron loading that I performed last week. The other EDS method that was used on a part of my membrane is the scan, which can gives numerical data about the composition percentages of each element detected in the sample. Another piece of equipment that I got to see was the optical emission spectrometer. This machine analyzed the concentration of iron in small samples of solutions that went in or out of the membrane during iron loading; these concentrations can be used to calculate the mass of iron loaded onto the membrane.  Lastly, I made a membrane out of cellulose and PAA, which I hope to begin analyzing and comparing with PVDF membranes. One metric that I hope to compare in particular is the amount of iron that can be loaded onto each type of membrane.

Aside from working in lab, I got to attend a meeting with some members of my lab and my advisor, in which everyone provided research updates to the rest of the group. One thing about this meeting that I was not expecting was that the research updates were group discussions about everyone's projects; in contrast, I was expecting the meeting to be a series of presentations with some questions at the end of each one. However, I enjoyed the unexpected format because it allowed my mentors, my advisor, and others to give me some feedback on my work. Furthermore, it led to some interesting dialogue about what others in my lab are working on. Also, the REU group had another lunch together on Friday, which was fun as normal.

One notable thing that I did this week on top of REU-related activities was celebrate the Fourth of July with the other REU students in the form of a potluck. Also, I went back to Mason, Ohio this weekend to see some family and friends. It was nice to enjoy some food, light off a few fireworks, and most importantly, get to catch up with others.

I look forward to continuing my research and the REU program as a whole as next week approaches.

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