Tag: Filters

Day 5 @CAAE

This morning I was showed the results from the TSS samples I tested on last Thursday. From this, we learned that the lab duplicate that I made and tested had failed but was very close to passing. I was informed that it wasn’t how I did it and that it would have just been something in the water that caused a bigger difference in weight; for example, a small stick.

Then I was put to work in the lab. I threw out the old filter sheets, ordered the tins they were in, put them in the right spot in the drawer, took out 60 of those tins, then got 60 new filters. With those new filters, I washed them with deionized water and put them in the tins. 

Once they were all put into the tins they were placed in the oven to get dried before they can get weighed before they can get used.

Once the filter sheets came out I weighed and recorded them on a data sheet.

To finish off the day, I worked with four SRP samples and the quAAtro machine. My results will come out tomorrow.

Day 2- Safety and Vacuuming

I spent my first day at the North Carolina Center for Applied Aquatic Ecology (NCCAAE) with Elle and Lisa. My safety training consisted of signing 3 forms and a tour around the facility: Elle pointed out every eye wash, shower, fire alarm, and exit in the building. NC State has a new policy about background checks, and the HR department is making everybody get one since I’m under 18. As a result, my next few days will be spent with Lisa (she’s new so she has an updated background check).

Lisa and I worked with recent storm water samples from the Neuse River and ran tests for total suspended solids. The tests consisted of pouring the water into a vacuum filter until at least 2.5 mg of solid was on the filter. The filters were then dried in an oven for an hour to remove the excess water. Lisa had me mass the samples and input the data into a spreadsheet.

The vacuum filtration process was quite tedious, each bottle was ~1 liter and she had about 9 bottles to go filter. Some of the samples took longer than others, and one of the samples had a few worms in the bottom. Though the worms were interesting, Lisa had to redo the filtration. While the filter was running, I asked her about her path into the profession/field. Basically she said that she hated science in high school (except for Environmental Science) and then ended up liking chemistry in college. Before working at NCCAAE she worked for several nonprofits and has found that she likes working in jobs with a hands on/direct impact on the environment.

IMAGE 1: Scale and Data sheet I filled out (scale worked to the 100,000th of a gram)

IMAGE 2: One of the vacuum filters after it was dried

(On an unrelated note, I found that Lisa and I are both picky about our pens, and we had a nice discussion about them after I complimented one of hers. She used a Uniball Laserjet .7 mm blue pen and it wrote quite nicely.)

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