Down to the final week of RET and reflecting on what a wonderful learning experience this has been.  I am looking forward to seeing everyone’s final posters this week.

Today I got to use the camera that measures contact angle and finally visualize some differences in our products.  I also ran a dispersibility over time test to see how well my samples stayed in solution. I will be adding these results to my poster over the next day and hopefully everything finally comes together into a cohesive story.

Happy final days, and thanks for all the wonderful memories these weeks!

This last week was full of fun!  Got my new chemicals and started using those to functionalize my hBN.  Got to spend time with Melly at the Farmer’s Market!!! And…lots of vacuum filtration! This may not sound like fun, but there is something satisfying about separating out components!  The challenge this week was to time my filtration process just right.  There is one functioning filtration set-up in my lab and I am sharing it with a group of graduate students (actually they are the ones sharing with me 🙂 ).  I had to step out of my comfort zone and communicate with others effectively to time use of the filtration device.

So excited to see how everything is coming together and may have so awesome updates this week about my experiment! Stay tuned everyone!

Last week was a waiting game for me.  My mentor ordered some new chemicals to try because the last one was not successful.  It ended up taking all the way until Friday to arrive.  This left me with way more “downtime” than I wanted or knew what to do with and also a lot of anxiety over obtaining any sort of results for my poster.   I had to train myself to use the time wisely to work on my abstract and poster.

Now the wait is over!  I have two new chemicals that I am testing this week.  Hopefully I will see a greater degree of functionalization with the hBN.  Hope everyone has a successful week!!

Sometimes, things don’t always work out the way you expect!

After testing my first functionalized samples of hBN by dissolving in a solution of hexane, we discovered that we did not have a hydrophobic sample of hBN. In fact, it still dissolved way too well in distilled water. It was hard to deal with this disappointment as, in theory, I really expected it to work. However, my mentor insisted we still analyze the sample using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR).

On the left is the functionalized hBN dissolved in hexane. All of it has settled out on the bottom. On the right is the functionalized hBN dissolved in DI water. You can see it is loving the water WAY too much.

It was really cool learning to use the FTIR machine. After a graduate student demonstrated how to use the machine, she then let me do all my samples on my own!!

On the left is a picture of my control and my 3 samples I am ready to test. On the right is a picture of the graduate student assisting me. 🙂

Upon receiving the FTIR results we could see that it was NOT a complete failure.  The hBN was in fact becoming functionalized, just not to the degree we were expecting.  My mentor suggested trying a different chemical and so thus begins a new week and new hopes!

Meet MILFRED! Day one on the job and I was introduced to this amazing machine. Although a simple concept, ball milling has the potential to be extremely significant in the field of nanotechnology.

Down in material sciences, we are using the ball milling process to break apart weak bonds attaching layers of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) and then attaching other functional groups. This means we can give hBN whatever desired properties certain companies are requesting.

These particles of hBN are captured by filtering out of solution using the following set-up.

Currently my project is to attach dimethyl acetamide to hBN with the hope of creating hydrophobic hBN.

Stay tuned for more exciting news from MATERIAL SCIENCES!!