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This morning I created new calibrations that included 0- 2.5 ppm Na to see if there are any effects due to sodium in the cobalt- only samples. I then diluted another set of sample solutions to run. This afternoon, I attempted to run the samples with the new calibration solutions but the sodium was very very off. I used a new stock solution of Na to make the solutions so tomorrow I am going to use the old and see if that fixes the problem. If not, I might have to scrap the new calibrations and simply use the old without sodium. The rest of the afternoon, the physics department tie dyed behind the science center.

This morning, I ran the remaining samples from the other dilution of the cobalt- only series. They had concentrations similar to the runs I have made this week so I must have made a mistake a month ago when I ran them. This afternoon, I made more samples to run and ran a combination of all the samples I have made this past week. The last run had an overall trend of lower concentrations for Co, P and the internal standard Sr. Hopefully I can use the standard to correct for this tomorrow.

Steve and Prof. Andresen are super excited about making the motors move!! (and other stuff probably but I wasn’t paying attention)

I recreated a 30x dilution set of the cobalt-only samples and got the same result as yesterday. Although the ion concentrations are about a factor of 10 lower than the previous data, the charge ratio of cobalt for both dilutions are within each other’s uncertainties. Tomorrow I’m going to play with the old samples to see if the factor of 10 still exists in the samples and then possible make new samples of that dilution and run it to compare to the old results.  

On Friday I created a new calibration set to run more cobalt-only samples. In those and the samples I made today to run, I included an internal standard (Sr). The standard worked well in all the calibration solutions on Friday, but I must have made the samples less precisely this morning because the concentration of Sr was no where near the value it should have been, so the internal standard was dropped. The samples I ran today were a factor of 10 lower than the cobalt-only samples I ran more than a month ago. I am still unsure if this is a calculation mistake or a trend that actually exists in the data. 

I read several articles while making sure Steve did not harm himself in the machine shop. The first article I read will be discussed on Friday during the lab’s journal club and was about the effects of different salts on DNA elasticity using magnetic tweezers. If you have been reading this blog, it is obvious that this article includes aspects of both our projects. Funnily enough, Prof. Andresen contributed to two of the articles in the reference section of this article. The other articles I read further explained the compaction of DNA and the protocol we can utilize in my project using the ICP-OES. I also reviewed all of my notes thus far to condense the method I’ve used this summer.

Today, I completely finished analyzing the data I have so far! Hopefully I can start the cobalt only samples tomorrow and finish them up by next week.

Today, I machined.I finished the taps for the piece that I made last Thursday, which connects a stepper motor to the 95mm rail mount, thus allowing us to attach the stepper motor to the rails. I also drew up plans and began to machine parts to allow us to connect the rotary motor to the stepper motor. The rotary motor will have the magnet holder (which we have yet to machine) attached to it.

Today, I worked on the data from the last two dilution sets. I averaged them together two different ways and then had to decide which way to display the data in a rough results explanation. The weighted average gave an odd shape for sodium similar to a wave. Now we are trying to fix the odd graphs by analyzing the data in different ways.

This morning, I ran the second set of samples twice. The calibrations for the second run were a little funky but overall it mostly affected the wavelengths that we do not use in data analysis. This afternoon I have been organizing the four runs, averaging them together and creating graphs that match the ones for the 100x and 20x dilutions. 

Because we have only taken data for a high and low dilution, today I made and ran samples at a dilution between the previous samples. I created two sample sets along with new calibration solutions. This afternoon, I ran the first set of samples twice. Taking a quick glance at the data, I noticed that the concentrations for the different elements are not a steady increase or decrease as it was previously. Hopefully once I begin analyzing the data, these strange data points will not significantly affect the overall trends.