The first week of the NEWT RET internship has been both the shortest and longest week that I have had in a long time.  My experience so far has been a flashback of my days in graduate school which included long days filled with classes, reading scientific articles, trying out procedures in the laboratory and running on caffeine.  This week has included all of those things and more.

During the first meeting with my mentor and PI I was introduced to a new scientific approach which includes 4 basic steps when developing a research program.  These steps included identifying a need, developing an approach to met that need, analyzing the benefits of your research and reviewing current end products by competitors.  Such an easy approach but it made me think of research in a whole new light.  It also gave me a new approach to share with my students!  From that conversation my PI encouraged me to develop project ideas that I was passionate about and so the work began.

The ideas that I had brainstormed oddly enough stemmed from the environmental science class that I teach vs. my biology course (which is the main component of my teaching).  I toyed around with a variety of ideas from breaking down plastics in water sources, to treating water sources at dairies to researching ideas concerning deadly algae blooms.  When conducting my research I found that the breaking down of plastics, which I thought was going to be “THE ONE”, was not as interesting as I had hoped.  Instead as I continued my research I began to find a link between toxic algae and dairy farms and so began the look into algae.  When I presented the algae idea to the PI he was excited, first asking though if I would be passionate about the idea.  Oddly enough I found myself smiling and shaking my head and now, I am all about algae.  :0)

The idea now?  To see the effects of paint containing titanium dioxide in reducing the growth of algae.  Why algae?  Algae I found is not only harmful to fish, but is also harmful to a variety of other organisms including cattle and even humans.  Plus, algae can just be unappealing in a variety of water sources including fish tanks, man made water structures (such as those in golf courses and residential areas) and pools.

My next steps are to now become familiar with growing algae in the lab and to see the research that exists on treating algae with nanoparticles.  Hopefully by doing so formulate a research plan including titanium dioxide in reducing the growth of algae.

The first week of NEWT RET has been the shortest and longest week and it has been a stressful and tiring week of finding my place in the world of nanotechnology.  It has also been a week of laughter, comradery, caffeine and pushing myself beyond self imposed limits.

So, in a nut shell, what I have learned this week can boil down to the following:

*Collaboration is key.
* Blessed are those who are flexible, for they will never be bent out of shape.
*Try, try and try again.

…and lastly, but perhaps most importantly… Let’s create an innovation!

My first week as a NEWT-RET intern can be summed up as “Learn, Understand, Ask Questions, and Try It Out!”  But that’s a little short for this blog post, so I should go back and explain.

This summer, I am working in Dr. Naomi Halas’ lab, with the goal to decompose urea into ammonia and carbon dioxide using aluminum nanoparticles and solar energy.  Decomposition of urea into ammonia is already used in several applications, from plastic production to removing pollutants from diesel fuel.  Ammonia is what is needed, but it’s difficult to store.  Urea is simple to store and use, and you have the added benefit of using a waste material (urine) to make a compound that’s needed everywhere.  Adding nanoparticles into the system will allow for this decomposition to occur without spending extra money on the energy required.  The sun will provide all the energy we need.

To accomplish this goal, I am working with my mentor, Dr. Oara Neumann.  I absolutely love her teaching style!  It is not enough to just be able to read the procedure and run the experiments.  She wants me (and everyone else in the lab) to understand the underlying principles.  Do we understand why we’re doing these experiments?  What is the theory behind it? How do we get from theory to practice?

So the first step for me was to understand how urea decomposes into ammonia.  Then I spent time in the lab, learning how to create different types of nanoparticles, aluminum-MOFs (aluminum particles coated with metal-organic frameworks) and nano matroyshkas (layered nanoparticles, named after the stackable dolls).  I observed the construction of the solar module we would be using.  We even created a calibration curve so we could determine the concentration of ammonia we obtain!

Throughout each step, I would have questions.  Dr. Neumann teaches me the same way I teach my students: answer a question with a question.  It’s easy to just give someone the answer, but then they won’t really learn or understand.  It’s better to help them work toward the answer.  Give them questions that would help them find the answers they seek.  She has helped me gain a much better understanding of the process, especially the chemistry!

The real trick is going to be the use of this little guy:

This is the solar module that will hold a membrane coated with the aluminum-MOF nanoparticles.  As the sun shines on it, the nanoparticles will absorb and resonate that energy to the surrounding solution, causing it to turn to vapor before the entire solution is even able to boil.  The ammonia vapor will pass through the membrane and condense, so we can collect it.  It’s great! It’s fantastic!  It requires a sunny day, and it’s going to rain for a full week….

Not a problem.  We will just have everything ready and run out into the sun.

Hello everyone!

My name is Taylor Miller and I am a RET intern in the NEWT lab at ASU. I am working in Dr. Westerhoff’s lab with my mentor Shahnawaz Sihna. The focus of my internship is removing harmful bromides that are created through the process of chlorinating water. Disinfectant By Products (DBPs) such as brominated DBPs are extremely hard to get out of our water and my lab is trying to remove them by adding silver nanoparticles to a common cleaning media and new medias that were created by Clemsen. We are putting the media with the silver nanoparticles in a column and adding water contaminated with bromide. If everything works correctly, the silver will attach to the bromide and we will be able to have DBP free water!

The first step in this process was testing to see if the column system Shahnawaz built actually works. I don’t have much engineering experience, but I feel like an engineer after this week. The system was one leak after another. Once I would get it to stop leaking, I had to make sure the flow was the same for the 6 different columns all the while keeping the PSI as close to zero. Sounds difficult, but it was actually pretty easy once I figured out how to control the motor and flow valve.

Next step was packing the column. This hasn’t been done before and the column are only .4 centimeters in diameter so I didn’t have much area to work with. I loaded the columns with 2 in. of glass wool to make sure that the media would not go through the column. The columns had great flow when I tested them with the glass wool. I can’t say the same for when I added the media. The media we were practicing with this week was Granular Activated Carbon (GAC). The GAC was tricky to figure out how to get into the column. The first problem we ran into was how to get the GAC all the way down the tube. Dry loading the GAC didn’t work because it would stick to sides of the tube and there were a lot of air bubbles. I decided to add some water and then add the GAC. The wet load worked and the GAC loaded with hardly any bubbles.

The moment of truth came when I had to test the columns with water. It worked the first day with 3 columns, but not the next day. I could get a single column to get water to flow through it. back to the drawing board.  I realized that the downward flow of the water into the column was causing bubbles and the media was being compressed from the pressure. After talking to another scientist, Paul, we were able to reverse the flow so the water would go up the column and I could control the flow before it entered the column, not after. Success! Well sort of…

One of my columns didn’t work after a while and will be remaking it again next week. Also, there were more leaks. On a brighter note, I just found out from my PI that I can use some pumps that another lab was using. Hopefully by having each column have its own pump I will be able to see water flow easily through each column.

I am having a great time in my lab and am putting together a great lesson for students to learn about this process!

Until next week,

Taylor

Coming back to Rice this summer has been interesting!

I’m working with Morgan Barnes in Dr. Verduzco’s lab.

She was recently featured for her work in the current project we are working on as well as her new project creating 2D Kevlar.  Super cool stuff! https://msne.rice.edu/liquid-crystal-elastomers-biomedical-uses

In general, it takes me a long time to get something. Especially if I’m learning something new! Morgan has been very patient and always answers my questions even if its something we had gone over already.  It is interesting to note that  she knows what I’m going through as far as learning protocols for the first time.  She recalls when she started this project and had to go through lab books left from the people previously working on the project.  She had to learn everything on her own as well.

Even though my background is in Biology and Chemistry, I feel that one will never truly know everything that there is to know in the field.  For example, in the lab this week we are synthesizing our liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs). LCEs are soft reversible shape changing materials that are currently only able to do that at temperature of 75C and over.  In order to apply this to biomedical devices, we need to lower that temperature. This is our main goal but we must work out the perfect ratio of reagents.  The synthesis portion has become a detailed task that I’m still trying to master.  It is almost an art like baking a cake.  You have to be precise about the reactants or ingredients being placed as well as how long to place in the oven or in my case on the hot plate to let the reaction go through.  The oven part is messing me up LOL

I have to remain positive though and make sure that I master the synthesizing of the material.  I’ve also learned more about material science which is something I never went over or have looked at since going to college and teaching.  It is such a fun field with many applications in bio,chem and physics.  This is helping me mold my brain into engineering as creating my lesson.

Anyway, I’m hoping that my next update will be a success in making the polymer so that we can continue on with the project. It is super exciting! I admire all the people working in this lab, there are many that I see are here before me and are here after.  I stopped looking at the time as much as I would do at work and focused on finishing small goals for the day here at Rice. I want to make sure that I’m focusing on the project and helping it go along smoothly! 🙂

Going into this RET experience I had a semester of undergraduate research experience in 2010 working with the genetics of a beet plant. Skip forward through my undergrad and 5 years of teaching to the summer of 2018. Now I’m working in a chemistry lab isolating single walled carbon nanotubes aka SWCNT using the chemical and physical properties of the SWCNTs. SWCNTs are less than 100 nm, made of only carbon and have the appearance of a tube. Just a little, okay maybe more than a little different than working with a beet plant.Good thing I have a positive attitude and love to learn! Plus carbon nanotubes are cooler than plants and less messy.

When I arrived to the lab I was given my own station with a stack of articles and a computer. I read through the articles, took notes, and used the computer to look up more articles and information. Most of the articles that I read didn’t include their protocols (procedures) within the paper so I would have to look somewhere else for that. The papers focus mostly on the theory of why the chemistry should work. I was perfectly content reading and thinking and reading some more, but my mentor and the rest of the people in the lab were ready for me to actually do something. This is a small lab of 5 people including myself and the professor. My goal is to sort the SWCNT sample by the properties of the SWCNT. By influencing the solubility of the SWCNT I can isolate the semi-metallic SWCNT in a hydrophobic solution while the metallic SWCNT will be in the hydrophilic solution.

My mentor Yu took me into the lab and helped me to start my stock solutions. Let’s just say I have room to grow or rather to slow down and be more gentle. I was surprised by just how fluffy and light the SWCNT sample was. They went flying as I tried to reach my scapula in. That’s when I learned that using weighing paper to get your substance is actually easier. All of the solutions have an easy to follow “recipe” because their concentration is determined by using the mass. LOVE THAT MATH! <– I do my students …. let’s just say formulas are their best friends.

I will quickly summarize the steps that I took to create my unsuccessful separation. 1. Disperse SWCNT 2.  Combine Correct Amounts of Solutions Into Eppendorf Tube 3. Centrifuge the Eppendorf Tube 4. Pipette Out Your Top Layer of Semi-metallic SWCNTs!

I would give myself a solid 2.5/4. I have followed 3 different protocols to isolate the semi-metallic SWCNTs from the metallic SWCNTs and each protocol has not been successful. Instead of separating the semi-metallic SWCNT from the metal SWCNT I’m just separating all of the SWCNT from the bottom phase of Dextran.

No one in the lab is surprised though, they are supportive and have assured me that it takes a while to figure out how to correctly separate the SWCNT using this particular protocol. Also, the tiniest of mistake in a measurement can lead to an unsuccessful trial.

My takeaway: I need to learn more about the surfactants and how they interact with the oxidizing agent. I will look for articles about the basics of dispersion and review oxidation of SWCNTs. Translated: I need to understand my ingredients better and how they affect my SWCNT

1. http://www.univie.ac.at/spectroscopy/fks/forschung/ergebnisse/nanotubes.htm

2, 3. https://what-is-nanotechnology.com/5CNTs-dispersions-carbon-nanotubes-CNTs.htm

4. Redox Sorting of Carbon Nanotubes

DOI: 10.1021/nl504189p

I know, I know…. people know how to do this and there are tools I could use to create the GUI. Having said that, I felt so happy to create my own window, with my own button, with my own pictures.

The first week: three things accomplished, waiting on mass spec, and I got to push the button.

Dr. Perreault was very patient this week, showing me around his lab space, describing the research I will be working on, and answering my totally naive-sounding questions.  As a side, I mentioned that I had produced nano particles with high school students at SMHS.  I said how difficult it is to produce evidence that they produced nano particles when limited to high school lab equipment.  A few minutes later, I had a test for the presence of nano-particles using a laser pointer (which Dr. Perreault even demonstrated in his office) that I can do in my classroom.  He also described a dynamic light scattering test and a UV-VIS test for nano particle size that I might try out here and use in my classroom as well.

Doug Rice, my mentor, and Diane (REU) walked me through the steps to create nano-silver laden membranes. I created my first one, and I got the the membrane to turn yellow.  YAY!  I t means I did the steps right and my stoichiometry was good too.  So now I can make infinite numbers of membranes.  Or at least a few dozen.

I also determined efficient ways to cut coupons out of the membrane.  Best use of material and such.  They let me use a hammer.  In a lab.

Also, I set up samples for ICP-MS (inductively coupled plasma mass spec).  The initial data will let us know if our procedures produces results similar to a previous study.

Next week I will be reacting the silver with sulfur.  The idea is that silver nano particles leach too fast from the membrane, so an incomplete reaction with sulfur will bridge together all of the silver nano particles keeping them in place longer while retaining most of their antibiotic capabilities.

But the highlight  this week was when Doug showed me how to use an autoclave.  He let me push the button.

Richard

First, an introduction. I’m Sarah Gonzales, a fourth grade teacher at Travis Elementary in the Houston Heights. I teach all subjects, but have a real love of science. I’m excited to be part of RET so that I can better teach the overall scientific process and talk to my students about the real scientific research I am doing over the summer.

It’s been an extremely busy, productive, fun week. I’ve been learning how to operate several instruments and learning the process for synthesizing, purifying and characterizing carbon nanotubes (CNTs).

Purifying CNTs is all about ridding the sample of amorphous carbon and iron. I’ve gone through the first several steps of the purification process, including washing the CNTs with hydrochloric acid. More on this next week, when I’ll be doing this by myself!

Before and after purifying the CNT sample, you need to characterize it. The first technique uses Raman spectroscopy. Raman spectroscopy  involves shining a laser on a sample and detecting the scattered light. With Raman, you learn how defective the CNTs are and if the CNTs are metal or semiconductors.

Today, I learned how to conduct thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). With this instrument, you’re basically burning part of the sample to find out what is left, such as iron.

Next week, we’ll be using scanning electron microscopy to find out about the morphology of the CNTs on a micron scale.

I can’t wait!

In week one in RET:

Its presentation day, a bit nervous but still smooth. This team has a uniquely, sound method of working with each other in harmony and peace.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1V3fhsjRkNvqu_NksAgphpevShqIchVaTm1YzK82aDQ8/edit?ts=5b1fdec2#slide=id.p