Greetings!
This week, my mentor Wei Ping has been out on vacation, but I’ve been able to keep in touch with a temporary mentor, Ahmad Elgazzar, to guide me through this journey.
Monday: Although I was not directly in my lab today, I worked in my cubicle space to read an article about carbon monoxide’s selectivity toward acetate using copper and palladium nanocubes as a catalyst. I made some finishing touches to my presentation draft as well. Before I “clocked-in” to my cubicle, I took my FWIS assessment at the library. The Fondren Library was the perfect place to take this assessment and made me excited to see what rigorous writing course(s) I will be assigned to!
Tuesday: Today I synthesized silver and gold-doped copper nanocubes. This process includes –
- Mixing copper nanocubes and DI water
- Separately, mixing chosen dopant and DI water
- Adding dopant mixture drop-wise to copper nanocubes
- Letting it stir for 2 hours
- Centrifuging and rinsing with more DI water
- Putting the mixture into a vacuum chamber overnight
I also had lunch with a few of the other REU interns, and toured the new O’Conner building, which has great views and not super cold and quiet!
Wednesday: I took the silver and gold-doped copper nanocubes out of the vacuum and spray coated the catalyst onto the gas diffusion layer. I read more literature about the carbon monoxide reduction reaction (CORR) and mechanism to include into my REU presentation. I found it a bit difficult to find a simple definition or mechanism for this reaction online, as most works discussed why CORR is valuable and how it can be applied.
Thursday: I ran a flow cell test with the catalyst, which ran smoothly. However, to configurate the liquid products of the experiment, I needed a specific ratio of D2O to DMSO, which ran out. Since the stock room is closed until Monday, it’ll be until then that I can see my results.
Friday: I synthesized another catalyst this time with palladium-doped copper nanocubes. Since these transition metals can make the nanocubes react faster in the experiments, this can lead to higher acetate formation – the main goal!
Overall, I’ve really enjoyed my full week. I feel ready for the weekend and to relax from the lab!
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Enjoy!
Chloe