Remember last time I talked about the structure of Lipitor? It looks like this!MaryAnn explains that its because of the different groups that it has makes it exhibits characteristics of both a strong acid and a weak acid,which is going to be super tricky.
So, Today! MaryAnn said that we are going to be working with soil next time, which is super exciting! (Real stuff!) We are, from what I understand, going to get soil from the outside and do expeirments to it to find out its characteristics to see if Lipitor exists in them. Thus, she thought that I should understand some basic characteristics of soil before we start anything.
Thus, she gave me her computer and log in to the RPI library and led into this ACS Publications and asked me to find articles about the following characteristics of soil. I was really amazed by such resourceful site and learned a lot from them. (I also took tons of notes!)
1. How to measure PH of a soil sample?
2. Particle Size Distribution/ Grain Size Distribution
3. Total Organic Carbon (TOC)
4. Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC)
5. Soil Moisture Content
(This is about how much notes I took for each one)
To be totally honest, although I learned a lot from reading these articles, I am still confused about some of the things or methods that were mentioned in those documents.
I hope real experiment next time will help me understand!:0
Looking forward for next visit :)!
Peggie
HI Peggie,
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting to know that the medicine when digested and secreted can cause environmental damage. It is also fun to learn that you can test the pH to see the effect of the drug (Lipitor). :)
--Yvonne Yen
Peggie!
DeleteIt was interesting to learn that TOC is the amount of CO2 in soil that's created by organic compounds, and that we use dichromate oxidation of the carbon after weighing the mass of CO2 produced.
CEC is the maximum amount of cations that a sample soil can hold, and it can be measured by barium acetate-ammonium chloride method, which you have yet to figure more about :)
Nice comment, Yvonne.
DeleteHi Peggie! I'm really interested to see how the characteristics of soil apply to seeing if Liptor exists in them. I learned that Lipitor can actually cause pH to increase in the body, so perhaps there will be a higher pH in the soil? I'm not sure but I'm excited to see your results!
ReplyDeleteInsightful comment, Rose!
DeleteGreat blog post, Peggie. I love the drug picture as well as the one of your notes - they represent great work on your part in lab. I am intrigued about you looking for Lipitor in the soil. Can't wait to learn of your findings!
ReplyDelete