First blog post of the school year! I know not everyone has started their research yet, but it’s important to record the week’s events in your Drive doc so we can record how you’re progressing. Even if it’s just the brainstorming stage of research, recording those thoughts and ideas is just as important as recording procedures and data. Sharing ideas with each other early on can lead to even better projects for the upcoming year.

So far we have updates from San Marino and Crescenta Valley. San Marino has 2 sub-teams. Team one did some great controls testing both Fe3+ ( iron nitrate) and Fe2+ (iron sulfate) to see what the difference between these compounds would be. Research of the Pourbaix Diagram for Fe2O3 from materialsproject.org showed that that this form of iron (III) oxide was electrically active at around 0.5 eV at pH 13, which was the pH in which we test our plates. As predicted the Fe3+ performed better (light teal) than the Fe2+ (dark blue). Next they added explored combinations of iron and copper, creating 6 ratios between Fe3+, Fe2+, and Cu2+, with the proportions being either 50:50 or 100:0. All solution were 0.10 M before mixing, and all the spots were pipetted and 5μL in size. Results coming soon!

The Blank Team at San Marino spotted, fired, and tested a control Fe(NO3)3 solution with varying concentrations of Fe(NO3)3. They wanted to test the effect of varied concentrations on the data as well as the durability of the spot. They tested four spots of 20 μL each (100%, 80%, 60%, 40%, and 20% Fe(NO3)3). After firing, a majority of the material fell off of the plate for the 60%, 30%, and 40% Fe(NO3)3 concentrations. The 100% Fe(NO3)3 and 80% Fe(NO3)3 concentrations still had material left on the plate, but they also lost some material as well. Results coming soon!

Crescenta Valley has split into 3 subgroups. Team 1: We made a 0.1 M BiVO4 solution. We want to continue our work from last year with BiVO4, and see how well BiVO4 works with Ni and Fe compared to Co. Team 2: Our goal this year is to experiment with different methods of alleviating the coffee ring effect. We have chosen three areas of focus: UV rays, a thin layer of silicone oil, and an ozone cleaner. This week we made a plate spotted with 0.1 M Fe(NO3)2 as a control plate. We plan to use the same solution in order to test the effects of the three methods listed previously. For the upcoming week, we plan to start buying parts for our ozone cleaner. Team 3: Our goal is to experiment with new materials and metals. After discussing with our mentors, we decided Mn with Ni might be a viable option based on a research paper we were looking at. More research will be needed to figure out how to make the Ni and Mn solution like in the paper. In the meantime, we made one plate with .1 M MnCl and .05 M NiCl, plated straight on top of each other. We will continue to experiment with new metals and see if we find anything.

Thanks for the updates CVHS and SMHS! Looking forward to hearing from everyone else soon. And remember to email you permission slips and sign up on the roster!!!!