In the morning, Ms. Mackenzie and I worked on one of the most tedious tests in the lab: total Kjeldahl nitrogen (basically, all the nitrogen in the sample). The first step in the process turns all the nitrogen in the sample into NH3 by using a mercuric oxide. I labeled the test tubes and added a bunch of purified water and then added five mL of the mercuric oxide. The water samples are preserved in sulfuric acid already, so the test tube contents end up being highly acidic. The test tubes are then placed on this cool stirrer thing, which spins them around super fast to mix it. It is then all heated for about 4 hours at approximately 280 degrees C. At the end of this process there was barely any liquid left in the sample (around ⅕ of the original), and more water was added.
In the afternoon, Ms. Mackenzie had me do a few projects involving lots of paper and organization. She gave me a spreadsheet and had me type in all the “blanks” (test run and their corresponding values. I also organized a few binders and worked with even more stickers.
Image 1: test tubes (white things are boiling rocks)
Image 2: The spinning thing and all the test tubes
