My Research in the Summer of 2020
Nanoparticles and Catalysts
Catalysts Audio
In an effort to gain a better understanding of catalysts and how they will be used in Professor Esposito's lab, I have created a short audio clip explaining one of the basic terms that needs to be understood to understand this project. The beginning of every research project is to develop a full understanding, and this audio helped me do so, and will hopefully help you too.
CREDITS:
“Chapter 1.” Concepts of Modern Catalysis and Kinetics, by I. Chorkendorff and J. W. Niemantsverdriet, Wiley-VCH, 2017, pp. 1–24.
I also got a lot of my information from a presentation by Thomas Jaramillo, the Assistant Professor in the Chemical Engineering department of Stanford University. This presentation was titled Energy Tutorial: Electrocatalysis 101.
Uv- Visible Spectroscopy Infographic
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A Brief Description of my Experiment
Description: In my experiment I used canola oil, Elmers' Super glue, and Amazon sprinkles. My aim was to replicate what coating does in labs. Sprinkles act as the catalyst, and glue acts as the agent that slows the catalyst from dissolving. The oil was used because sprinkles do not dissolve in oil, like they do in oil.
Final Procedure:
1. Put four tablespoons of canola oil into a glass bowl
2. Add 1 teaspoons of sprinkles
3. Add 1 teaspoon of sprinkles
4. Slowly stir for 7 mins
EDIT: While recording areas of sprinkle particles, both in the glue and in the control experiment, I had to make a change to my procedure. The sprinkles were very small and my technology (ImageJ) could not pick up on every particle. So in order to drain water out of the glue, we decided to add nail polish, an "at home acetone". This increased the size of the glue coated sprinkles
Final procedure before acetone: Final procedure after acetone:
If you are interested in exploring my exact process, and the different "recipes" I used and what each method taught me, please click on the presentation below.
The Experiment Process
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Results
The results showed that the coated sprinkles were significantly smaller than the non-coated sprinkles. This can be explained because even though sprinkles will not dissolve in oil, they will dissolve in water, and glue has water in it. Therefore the sprinkles decreased in size, unrelated to the method in which we applied the coating. This showed one flaw in our method but still slowed down the dye from dissolving by exponential rates.