Mole Day Eve

This week is National Chemistry Week in honor of Mole Day tomorrow (10-23). One mole of a substance is 6.02 x 10^23 particles of that substance. So one mole of water would be 6.02 x 10^23 molecules of water which, as it turns out, is 18.0g of water. This can be figured out using the periodic table of elements using the atomic mass of any of the elements. The atomic mass tells us that one mole of that element is that many grams. So for oxygen it's 16.0g and for hydrogen it's 1.0g, but there are 2 hydrogens in water, so we multiply 1.0g x 2 and add 16.0g to get 18.0g in one mole of water. AMAZING!
In honor of National chemistry week and Mole Day, the PLU Chemistry Club put on "Mole Day Eve" for the PLU students and anyone who wanted to come. There was liquid nitrogen ice cream, other desserts (but who can top liquid nitrogen ice cream?) and of course . . . DEMOS! There were some stations set up for hands-on demos, but the professors also did cool (dangerous!) demos. I forgot my camera, but I did take pictures on my phone. They're not as good quality as from a camera, but you'll get the main point.

This is taken from the top of the stairs. People enjoying desserts!

That's how liquid nitrogen ice cream is made!

Liquid nitrogen everyone! It has to be stored in a special container because it's so cold. When you pour it out, it evaporates because it's boiling point is below room temperature, so the fog you are seeing is actually water vapor condensing because of the coldness of the liquid nitrogen.


Liquid nitrogen! Really you don't eat the nitrogen, you only use it to get the ice cream really cold. And the "ice cream" is milk, sugar, half-and-half and sometimes oreo cookies.

The finished product!

They put dry ice into the punch to keep it cold. The fog creates a nice effect!


Fluorescent stuff! The yellow on the sides is made with dish soap and flourenol, the blue is made with quinine and the center tube is a mix of the two. There's a fluorescent lamp that's shining on them to make them glow.


Fog! Creepy! We filled a lot of the sinks with hot water and added dry ice and viola!


Glow-in-the-dark Gak! It's made using glue, water and somethings else, plus fluorenol to make it glow in the dark. Kind of home made putty.


Ooblek! Made using starch and water! It's really cool and fun to play in! It's a liquid and a solid at the same time! Crazy! If you hit it or use force, it acts like a solid, but if you slowly work with it, it acts as a liquid. You can slowly sink your fingers in it, but if you try to pull them out really quickly, it's really hard! This happens because the starch molecules are kind of like fibers and the water molecules can ease them around something when you work slowly with it, but if you hit it, the starch molecules push out the water and become like a solid.



Elephant Toothpaste . . . coming out of a pumpkin! It's pretty cool. I think there's dish soap, hydrogen peroxide (30%) and IKI is the catalyst that starts the whole thing going. hydrogen peroxide decomposes to hydrogen and oxygen gas and makes the dish soap bubble.


The Screaming Gummy Bear! Some sort of inorganis solid was melted with a blow torch and a gummy bear was dropped into the melted substance. There was this sound (presumably the gummy bear screaming) and the purplish light and a lot of smoke! Hopefully we didn't set of the fire alarm! (We didn't)


Tinkerbell! Magnesium metal was put on a sheet of dry ice and lit with propane. It was then covered with another sheet of dry ice and the result was this really powerful light and it just went at it! It was really cool!

There were a few other demos, but it was hard to take a picture, because they were instantaneous. It was a really fun night!

The Stockroom . . . . . . . . Begginings. . . . .

I love working in the stockroom, it's so quiet and peaceful, separated from the world, the sound of running water as it rinses the graduated pipettes. It's nice, I like it. Just me and the mess that has to be cleaned up and organized. I'm not trying to be sarcastic, but I like cleaning and organizing, especially something really dirty. I don't know why, but I like the challenge of organizing everything so that it has it's own place and it stays there, neat and clean. I especially like to clean when there is no one around to bother me or mess something up. When I work by myself, I know what I want to do, how I want to do it and when I want to do it.

Yesterday I organized this shelf. It's usually full of basket of old glassware that we haven't used in ages, but Terry (my boss) is going trough it to see what we can toss. We also put student's experiment samples here, that's why there are letters next to some shelves. The other shelves are for storage of anything that has to be put somewhere, but doesn't really have a place yet.





So yesterday I organized the shelf and some glassware, as I mentioned in my previous post. Today I decided to tackle the drawers! There are drawers on both sides of the C table (the next two pictures will show you both sides). I went through all the drawers and organized everything! The test tubes and the sample vials were in a bad state! Not only were they misplaced and put in a totally wrong spot, a great deal of them were dirty! I went through everything and took out the dirty glassware. By the time I was done, I had a whole bin full of test tubes and sample vials.


This is the front side, the test tube drawers are along the bottom, starting with the smaller sizes and continuing on. The sample vials are also stored here. There's three drawers of vials and each drawers hold three to four different sizes. the sample vials should be stored with the screw caps on them so that when people need them, they don't have to go searching for the caps. But, of course some vials didn't have caps on them, and some were so dirty I had to question the eyesight of the person who was putting it away. But it's all good now, it's organized and neat.


This is the back side of the table. The drawers hold round bottom flasks, separating funnels, watch glasses, screw top test tubes, different sizes of caps for jars and bottles, glass and plastic stoppers and other cool things. The two that I spent the most time on here were the glass stoppers and the exotic . . . something (I forgot the second part of the name). Anyway, those things are used for titration burettes, one part goes into this opening and gets screwed on with these little round wheel things and you can turn the knob of the exotic . . . to let as much liquid to fall from the burrette as you want. This is good because in a titration, you need to be very precise and accurate with your measurements. Anyway, (a little chemistry lab lesson) when these things are stored, they have to have the little white wheel and the colored wheel things on it. But of course, most did not have them. I emptied out all the boxes that were holding the apparatus and went through everything and separated the ones that did not have everything on it from the completed ones. I should have taken a picture, but I didn't think I would go off on such a tangent about the exotic . . . I will make sure to take a picture tomorrow of all the parts and where it is supposed to go, so it's easier to follow.
The glass stoppers. . . what can I say, people don't know how to read. There are marked boxes that hold each size and each little glass stopper has a number (the size) and all you have to do is look closely at the stopper and put it in the right box. But I guess that's too much to ask. . .

These are all the test tubes that were "clean" and I had to rewash them. Don't let the picture fool you, even though it looks like there's not much, it took me an hour and a half to wash! The smaller ones are the worst because they're small so you can fit more in a smaller space and they're harder to wash. So let me tell you the washing process. First I fill one sink with hot water and soap. Then fill the sink next to it with warm water (one faucet for two sinks). I already prepared the bin with distilled water. When the hot-water sink is ready, I soak as many test tubes as I deem safe. after they sit there for a few minutes, I start washing them. Now, some of these test tubes had been labeled on the outside with a permanent marker. That's no big deal because marker comes off of glass, but I have to wash each test tube on the outside as well as inside. So I wash them in hot, soapy water, then I rinse them in warm water, then I rinse them again in cold distilled water. We have to do this for every dish that we wash. Then we transfer it somewhere to dry. Test tubes go in test tube racks. Sample vials go on the drying rack (next picture).


I worked all day today, from 8:30 to 5pm and All I did was organize drawers and wash test tubes and vials! I'm a pretty fast worker, so you can tell that it's going to take a long time for me to get everything organized in there.

After work I went to the book store to look at books I need and double check everything before I ordered them online. By that time I was so hungry! So I went to a terriyaki place next to the book store and ordered chicken terriyaki. The plate was HUGE and there was soo much food! Usually I share one plate with you Makara, but you were not here, so here's your portion!

Can you believe it. I ate as much as I could and all this was still left over. So I got a box and took it home, my brothers loved it!

First Day of Work

Today, I went to PLU to see my boss because he was coming back from vacation and I wanted to talk about work. I parked next to the library so I could walk through campus and see how PLU is doing. The scenery is amazing! Green everywhere! Except it's a little cold walking outside in all that shade.


Help! The attack of the squirrels is once more upon us! As I was walking around, minding my own business, I walked under this oak tree and SOMETHING was trowing down acorns! I didn't actually catch the culprit responsible, but knowing PLU, it could have been nothing else, but a squirrel!


As you can see, this is what I have to deal with at work! Mess, clutter, disorganization! People please! Learn how to follow the leader! If the glassware is organized in a specific way, then FOLLOW THE PATTERN!!!!! Don't try to put the dishes anyway you want, FOLLOW THE TEMPLATE THAT HAS BEEN PROVIDED! I organize and rearrange and they NEVER LEARN! I don't know how many times throughout the semester I organized the glassware in a specific way, but people ALWAYS MESS IT UP!!! Can't they see the pattern? I don't understand! They just put the dishes however they want, then they can't fit as much, then they have to put it in a different spot WHERE IT DOES NOT BELONG! I am surrounded by incompetence! I'm gone two months and the place is a mess! Look at what I have to deal with!!!!!

The Chemistry Stockroom Before Olesya takes charge!




I'm organizing and rearranging this shelf. I will make sure to include AFTER pictures! But seriously, the place is a mess! I started putting away dry dishes, but once I saw how disorganized the shelves that hold the dishes were, I had to do some organization, I can't work like that. So I organized the shelves with the beakers, Erlenmeyer Flasks, Filter Flasks and Graduated Cylinders. Then I started putting away test tubes. There's three sizes of test tubes that are the same length, but have different diameters: 15, 16, and 18. There is quite a big difference between the three! But people never make sure that they're putting test tubes in the correct spot! I had to go through all the test tubes in each slot and make sure the correct ones were in there. That takes time because there are a lot of test tubes! I was happy, until I looked in some of the other drawers with test tubes and it looks like I need to spend some time on the other ones as well, because (you guessed it) people put the wrong test tubes in the wrong spots!

You might ask why I'm so anal about the stockroom being organized and why I'm complaining about this stuff, but I work in a chemistry stockroom, where people come to get dishes and chemicals and anything they might need for their experiments. If things are not in the correct spots, people will not be able to get what they need, or they might get the wrong stuff and it might mess up their experiment. A test tube with a diameter of 18 cm holds much more stuff than a test tube with a 15 cm diameter. Disorder and clutter could also be dangerous, there are some strong chemicals in there and if people trip while carrying those, or they get knocked over... that could be REALLY bad!


This is the open lab where chemistry students perform their experiments. It's open 1-6pm Monday through Friday. Students can come up to the open window where stockroom workers check out a basket of materials they need for that week's lab. There are fume hoods for every class where the chemicals for each week's experiment are kept. It looks nice now, but wait until school starts! There's going to be clutter everywhere! Seriously, people need to clean up after themselves and not lay all their stuff laying around!