Bigger isn’t always better

Hello again,

 

This past week has been productive, though frustrating as well. The Biodiesal reaction I have been working with has been stubborn in that it doesn’t seem to work as well when scaled up. This issue has been my work for the week, as I have been trying to tweak the recipe bit by bit(which fortunately takes days each time I tweak it, yay). I have also begun to hit my stride in terms of understanding the “flow” of the lab, and the research in general. I’ve had a blast socializing with everyone while at work, and they are all nice people.

 

Talk has also been had about speaking at the next national ACS(American Chemical Society) meeting, and presenting the research. All three of our major projects, as of this week, are up and working. Only smaller issues still need to be worked out before we publish, patent, and then apply for a lot of grant money. They idea of getting to present in front of hundreds of scientists is pretty incredible, and I hope everything works out in such a way.

 

Anyway, this wasn’t a long blog, but rather a check in. I am going to a team dinner for the lab, and figured I’d update you all on everything that happened this week. I will leave you with a picture of EVA, one of our very expensive “rotovaps”(a thing that lets us remove certain liquids from a mixture). She is essential to everything I do, and she is my friend. When the machines take over, maybe she will spare me. *

 

Ciao.

 

*EVA and all her glory is too much for this site to handle apparently, as the file is too large. I will work on this problem on a later date. Sorry friends.