Because the faculty was unable to attend, we had to cancel our trip. In order to find an even easier access site, we began to contact the Queens Elizabeth Central Hospital as well as Beit Cure Hospital to see if they’d let us test their water and see if we could devise a treatment with Moringa seed incase their water needed improving. Because we also would need written permission from the water board in the city, it seemed unlikely that this idea would work out, either. Thankfully, the Dean of Engineering at the Polytechnic, said she could take us to the Bangwe Township, specifically to the Ntopwa Village to open well water sources. Additionally, a civil engineering staff member was near the site, so we would be able to visit frequently without issue. It seems that next week will prove very exciting because of this new opportunity.

Monday, we were originally scheduled to go to Chikwawa and begin working on the Ndlema Village Water Treat Project. This would have been transporting the barrels and all materials up early Monday morning, building a platform, starting work on the bio char by end of day Tuesday. It would not have been until Saturday, when we assembled the apparatus, that we would have returned to Blantyre. However, because of the length of trip involved, spotty cell service, and lack of faculty oversight available, we postponed the trip until later in the week. It was then decided that the risks involved in this project, as well as the issues with simply building a treatment system and then leaving, were too much to continue.

Therefore, it was back to the drawing board. We decided to look for a closer village, one where a faculty member could hopefully be more available to supervise in case anything happened. We would be less focused on creating an entire water treatment system and instead try to work through the moringa seed dosage, method of dosage, and time of treatment. Biological contaminants, such as e. coli and coliform count, and turbidity would be the tests used to determine the effectiveness. A planned trip to the school site in Lunzu is planned for Thursday.

I think this past week has been by far the most productive. I have been staying later than usual each day in lab and I’ve gotten pretty deep into my project. I don’t mind working late as long as there are other people around and I have good company. Sometimes, I’ll get really excited to work in the lab just because there’s not too much going on in El Paso anyways. I have been making significant progress and have also been working on an additional NEWT project with another student.

With 3 weeks remaining, I will focus on preparing samples and running various characterization tests. I am familiar with some of these techniques, but there are some new ones I had to look up. Overall, we will be doing SEM, TEM, EDX, XRD, IR, TGA, and BET analysis for each sample. I took the time to look up each of these to familiarize myself with the theory, operation principles, and applications. This week, there was a NEWT thrust 1 meeting where I got to hear other people discuss the work they are doing. I did not give any updates on my work, but I enjoyed listening to others. At the next group meeting, I will be giving a brief PowerPoint presentation to summarize my progress.

The second half of this week involved gearing up for the trip to Chikwawa, as it was determined to be the ideal location. Most everyone agreed that Chikwawa would be more exciting due to isolation, but Lunzu was still considered because it meant easy transport of building materials and being near Blantyre, our home base. Going to Chikwawa would mean a week of living in Chikwawa, which would take planning. However, we still decided to go to Chikwawa. Thursday and Friday of this week were spent in the back of a pickup truck, driving through the different markets looking for all the necessary supplies. Some things, such as the blue barrels and oil drums were easy to locate, but others, such as the sieve materials and the correct pipe fittings were quite difficult to find, if not impossible. Several of the sieves had to made from other material in the end.

On Saturday, June 18, the larger group of interns planned a trip to the Majete Game Reserve, which was near Chikwawa. It was an interesting experience because we not only did the traditional game drive, but also did a boat drive. The boat let us see many more animals than expected, including hippos, crocodiles, and many birds. Both were lots of fun, but it was definitely a long day. However, we were able to see the mountain road at sunset on the ride back, which was quite beautiful.

 

We had two village trips planned for the start of this week, and while originally the group was going to divide up to visit the sites, we decided it was better to visit them all together so we could determine which had the most potential. On Monday, June 13, we went back to Lunzu, but to a different site—this time to a small private school that used both borehole water and open reservoir water. This was the site suggested by the Village Hygiene Project, and the school administration seemed interested in the proposal. Testing the water, we found that e. coli and other coliforms were certainly present.

On Tuesday, we went to Chikwawa, to the Ndlema village, which involved a long trip in minibus on a mountain highway followed by a bumpy trip up another mountain in a 4WD truck. The village was very isolated, especially in comparison to the school site, meaning that the village does not get much outside attention from water projects. They were certainly happy to share their water collecting process and welcomed the idea of the project. They, too, used a borehole, but it was determined to be contaminated. Additional water was taken from a nearby stream, but the water level was very low and the water was stagnant. We were not able to collect samples initially because we were unsure how to travel with glass bottles on such a bumpy road, but were fairly certain of the contamination.

This past week I analyzed my samples using the fluorescence microscope. The next picture is an image of the phages that I had isolated on week two. We do this test to check mostly that the phages are in the stock solution and review also the abundance. We where able to see different layers crossing throughout the sample, containing a good abundance of phages. After this we started the union of the phages with the different materials such as Fe-Cs, F-N, and others. Once combined, they were tested to check the phage abundance and also plated together with different bacteria.

The course of this week has certainly been eventful in every way. We received a new instrument, UV Transilluminator, with two ultraviolet wavelengths, proficiency in Excel has minimized my data analysis from 11 hours to three hours, and discoveries in our solution has shed some light on my knowledge of photocatalyst.

To start off this week we received a new UV Transilluminator and had learn the functionality of this new instrument. The set up and process is similar to our previous UV Transilluminator so it did not take very long. I designed a frame to cover the screen of the transilluminatorr to help maintain uniformity of UV rays to our multiwell sample. We also incorporated another instrument to our research that allows us to measure fluorescence. We discovered that special black multiwells would have to be used with this instrument to obtain better readings for our sample.

I have come to notice this week that my proficiency in Microsoft Excel has dramatically improved. From the first and second week I was here, I had to create a template for all the data we collected. Now looking back I see that  I have become a lot faster in organizing, analyzing, and interpreting data. Recently, I have been working on a MatLab code during my free time to help data analysis, but I am stumbling upon a portion of my code that allows me to organize my data in matrix form. More is to come of this code as I try to discover a proper way to allow MatLab make my graphs and organize my data.

One of the grand discoveries we made this week was a buffer effect. We discovered that by using different buffers causes a faster rate of reaction when using a photocatalyst. This week we will be aiming to find out more information on why this is so and using more photocatalyst to observe if this trend is constant.

Towards the end of the week Dr Alford talked to several REU students about graduate school and the process several students take. Although I am a rising Sophomore, I am starting to think more about what I would like to do once I graduate. One of the options for me to take is going to graduate school, and I think that may be one of the better decisions I will have to make one day. As far as what I would like to study will be a challenge, and with that note I understand I do have time on my side to make these decisions (and nanotechnology is one of which that does peak my interest).

In the lab, I have continued to synthesize magnetite nanoparticles because my project requires a large quantity. I have also carried out this procedure because some partner universities of UTEP have requested samples of the nanoparticles. This week, I began the synthesis of graphene oxide. This synthesis is done with the following starting materials: graphite, potassium permanganate, and a mixture of sulfuric and phosphoric acid. In comparison with the previous synthesis procedure, this one has much more precautions involved. When dealing with highly corrosive acids, the chemicals should be handled under the hood at all times and be kept a safe distance away from the skin. The reaction for graphene oxide production is extremely exothermic, meaning that it is very heat sensitive. Needless to say, this procedure could be very dangerous if not handled properly. Graphene oxide was produced by the end of the week, but I still have to do the isolation and purification steps carrying on to the next week.

I am glad that some of the techniques I practiced in my previous lab proved useful here. The purification of product material follows a procedure that I am very familiar with involving solvent addition, centrifugation, and decanting the supernatant. I feel that I have absorbed a great deal of information in just two weeks, but I realize that I still have a lot to learn. When I am not working on my own project, I am trying to learn about the other chemistry-related techniques and procedures going on in the lab. In the down time between experiments, I enjoy reading relevant literature to gain a deeper understanding of my project. Once the working week was complete, some members of my lab group celebrated the birthday of a graduate student. It was nice to hangout with my fellow lab mates in a relaxed, nonworking environment. I also went hiking/exploring on a trail that was not well maintained. It is important to tread carefully on unknown terrain because there were some breaks in the trail and obstacles along the way. There were also some jackrabbits on this trail, but they were too fast for me to snap a picture (maybe next week, right?).

Analyzing data is perhaps one of the most important aspect in the STEM fields. This week I was able to fully experience the process of analyzing data, thus giving me an understanding of data collection and interpretation.

At the start of this week Dr. Bi assigned me to measure methylene blue (MB) degradation from different types of titanium dioxide (TiO2). The data that was produced from this experiment was very intriguing and helped me realize the importance of reproducible outcomes. The amount of time researchers spend on analyzing and interpreting data without computer assistance amazed me as well as for it took me a long time to complete this process.

By the end of this week I had to present all of the information that I had discovered. This was a very unique experience for me to meet with parts of my group. I was able to discuss information about different parts of our overall project and goal for the research we were conducting. Constructive criticism was given out to help better my presentation and knowledge of MB, TiO2, and photocatalysis in general. For this upcoming week I plan on creating a MatLab program to help me analyze all of the data I receive so I can spend more time of experimenting with new photocatalyst.

I am starting to figure out how I can balance my research and individuals back from home. Today was Father’s day and my little four year old sister’s piano recital. I experienced a bittersweet moment when I Skyped my Dad and saw my little sister play the piano. I am really proud of my sister playing in front of a really big audience without playing the wrong key or song. Hopefully this week will be a lot better with cooler temperatures, the high for today and this week was 120 degrees.

Determining the Ion exchange capacities (IECs) of certain membranes are what our work has focused on during this second week. We made a few membranes by mixing certain amounts of Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA) and sulfosuccinic acid (SSA) and leaving the resulting solutions in an oven for 24 hours.  We made a total of 12 membranes and determined their IECs. The IEC of a membrane is important because it affects how well the membrane can do its job of preventing ion backflow during Membrane Capacitive Deionization (MCDI). We have not carried out any MCDI trials yet for the membranes. We will do that in the upcoming weeks.

8 of the membranes in their vials

The lab has also ordered the parts for a flow coater device and those should be arriving in the next few weeks. Once we have the parts we will have to assemble the flow coater in order to use it to coat our electrodes with the membranes for MCDI trials.

Until next week

T