Week #4 has been interesting. My mentor has been out of the lab for a week, and I have been working by myself. She didn’t really assign me much to do in the lab, just do simple measurements and set up some equipment. I have been spending much of my time in my cubicle working on my research presentation. I am looking forward to creating and presenting what I am researching on. Although I have already talked to most of my friends about what it is that I am doing in the lab, presenting it to the whole cohort with diagrams and pictures is definitely going to make my research project make more sense.

 

Before my mentor had left, we were working on synthesizing a catalyst ink by mixing Hydrogen Hexachloroiridiate(IV), Nafion solution, and deionized water. There was an article published by Chinese scientists on synthesizing this catalyst ink, and we were following the step-by-step procedure.

Once we mixed the solution with the ingredients, sonicate about an hour or so, and the final step is to let it evaporate at 80 degrees Celsius for five hours…. thing is that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. So, my mentor and I were puzzled after 5 hours as to why the scientists who conducted this research set the temperature on the hot plate to 80 degrees Celsius. Our catalyst ink wasn’t boiling, and it had been about 8 hours. She suggested they might’ve set the ink to evaporate under a vacuum since the boiling point of a substance decreases as the pressure decreases. She insisted they left that part out in the process because it was implied, they conducted the experiment in a vacuum. So, for the past two days or so I have been trying to boil the water out of our catalyst ink.

 

 

I have also been working on a 3D design of the electrolyzer that will be used for water splitting. Since I am a mechanical engineer major, I have some experience using CAD software and I thought this was a great opportunity to model the components of the electrolyzer. I plan to display this design in my presentation and also include it in the final poster presentation. It was pretty fun designing the electrolyzer using CAD, and I did show my mentor and her peers and were pretty impressed with my design. I forgot how fun it was to use Fusion. I am also thinking of creating 2D diagram of what happens inside the electrolyzer, but I doubt Fusion would be the suitable program for graphic designing.

On Friday I had the opportunity to go visit a water treatment center. It was pretty interesting, and I liked how the treatment process was structured. The water treatment manager explained how the different facilities worked, and it was intriguing. As he was discussing the different facilities in the water plant,

I started to think about if there is any resemblance between my major and water treatment. Turns out engineers are responsible for the design and layout of the facility. Since water treatment facilities use membrane and filtration separation, mechanical engineers design the systems to support them. It was a pretty interesting trip. I wouldn’t mind working in the environmental engineering using a mechanical engineering degree.

Overall, it was a pretty interesting week despite the fact that I wasn’t much in the lab. It’s hard to believe that we are already in week five, and halfway through the program. I am excited for what is to come.

– Adrian