Week 2
The reason for this project is to be able to find a cheaper way of synthesizing the nanoparticles of Fe3C. There have been previous experiments with this solution, but the chemicals that were used were too expensive even for a small sample.
This week I started working on the second project as well as the first one. For my original project, synthesis of iron carbide, I extracted the metals that were created from my 3 solutions:
- Pork skin gelatin, melamine, FeCl2, FeCl3, DI H2o, and Ethanol
- Chitosan, melamine, FeCl2, FeCl3, DI H2o, and Ethanol
- Pork skin gelatin, Chitosan, melamine, FeCl2, FeCl3, DI H2o, and Ethanol
The process used to extract all the impurities was by washing out the solutions with water and ethanol three times each. From there, my mentor and I had to get in contact with Rice to see if the next best step was to add HCl for 48 h to completely remove the left over impurities.
Left: Chitosan, Middle: Pork Skin Gelatin, Right: Pork Skin Gelatin and Chitosan
As for the second project that I am working on, graphene oxide was used aside with other chemicals in order to create a structure of carbons that will allow magnetic nanoparticles to be attached to the surrounding edges of the structure. The graphene oxide was put to dry with ether in order to take accurate x-rays to see if the carbon structure was properly created. Prior to the drying step, the whole solution was inserted into the centrifuge machine to maximize the separation of the aqueous and solid solvents.
Solution inserted into the centrifuge machine to separate GO from the aqueous solvent