Chapter Nine: Well Shucks, NAU Students (feat. Melanie, Jeff, Jamie, Bryden, Sabrina)

As you all know, the Colorado Plateau Stable Isotope Lab/Colorado Plateau Analysis Lab takes samples from clients and analyzes them for concentrations of different compounds: nitrate, sulfur, potassium, and many more. In water, it's important not only that there aren't compounds like nitrate and phosphate (that are not only toxic to humans but also promote algae growth, causing DBP buildups) but also heavy metals like chromium and lead that are much more toxic than the former. Thus, the lab on occasion receives samples of water for heavy metal analysis using our Flame AA machine - sometimes from paying clients, sometimes from environmental classes at NAU doing projects.

This week, we received water samples from two NAU classes asking for that very same type of analysis - chromium and lead in the Flame AA - and boy, was it a tough one. Like all samples, we have to do dilutions of the raw samples so that we can add in the analysis standards, but it becomes tricky when said raw samples have such low levels of the ion in question that dilution makes it impossible to even sense that ion!

The two classes' samples - 31 in total!

We started with a 1:100 dilution and got nonexistent readings, so we reduced it all the way down to a 1:2 dilution!

After we ran the 1:2 dilution through the machine, we found that lead in the samples was mostly detectable, whereas chromium was still in tiny amounts!

So this next week, we'll be doing more of the Flame AA, trying to fix the dilution ratios. Hopefully, the next time students send in samples, they'll have detectable amounts of ions.

 This past week, I also continued with the digestion of that soil sample, and we'll continue that this next week. And lastly, as I usually post on Monday, I've started on a pretty important but (quite possibly the most) disgusting operation: that'll be in next week's post.

Thanks for reading! Remember that my SRP presentation is on Saturday, May 6th, at 4 pm! Also, I'll be finishing that up within the next week! I'm not sure if I can actually publish it online (for CollegeBoard purposes), but feel free to shoot me an email at lucascrane11@gmail.com if you'd like to read it!

End of Chapter Nine.