Today the big event was finishing the nitrate test we began yesterday. Tim didn’t know why this test is important but we will ask tomorrow. Yesterday we took a 50ml sample of each of the six ponds and filtered them. The filter used is very, what’s the word, precise? Therefore we must use a vacuum to pull the water samples through the filter or it would take hours. Then we put each of the filtered water sample is a ceramic dish. The last step we did yesterday was put the six ceramic dishes on a heater so today only the dissolved solids will remain.
Today we arrived to find all the water form the samples evaporated with only the salts remaining. Tim told me to add 1ml of some chemical to each of the samples. It is not that I wasn’t paying attention it is just the vial of chemical had no label. When I added the chemical and stirred it a horrible smelling vapor rose up. At this point Tim remembered that we were supposed to be wearing masks. Soon he handed me a dust mask, I asked what these were for. Tim told me that we had to wear these because the vapors are dangerous. I didn’t think these were meant for that so I checked the box; in big bold font the box said “Not for protection from Chemical Fumes.” Oh well.
The next part of the test needed to be preformed in a hood, a special table with a fan/vacuum to keep the worker from inhaling fumes. We had to add 4ml of 33% ammonium to each of the pond samples. This is where it got slightly dangerous, when adding the ammonium to the samples noxious fumes were given off. The hood didn’t work great so we had to be careful to breathe away from the samples. After adding about 45ml of distilled water to the samples we brought the samples back to the lab. The final step of the process was to take a very small amount of each sample and measure it under the spectrometer.
Later in the afternoon Dr. Gamal came by and gave us some Egyptian deserts. Most of them were very good, but there were a few that were…an acquired taste. I’m finally starting to get everything packed up, and cleaning us the dorm room.
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