Meeting 7: 19 March 2013
Meeting Minutes
Date: March 19, 2013
Attendees: Houpt, Peng, Bertoli, Hodge, Morgan, Barnes (call in), Moortgat (call in)
Discussion:
1. Chemistry lab floor plan. There is a major traffic bottleneck at the entrance of the lab, where organic chemists, porewater chemists, and the chemistry techs will have to pass through from catwalk sampling to the GCs and porewater squeezing station.
Two proposals were submitted from the chemistry tech and Chieh, see attached pdf
a. Switch 2 GCs with Cary Spectrophotometer and Dionex IC
Pro: Separate traffic between water chemists and organic chemists
Con: none
b. Move the Carver presses down to aisle 4 by microbiology area, and switch Alk/Chlorinity station with TOC and GC2.
Pro: Change the bench where presses are on to narrower cabinet/shelf to house glassware and chemicals
Con: a. Disrupted work flow in microbiology, b. may just move the traffic problem form one end of lab to the other, c. lose lots of storage space; there are 12 drawers and 1 cabinet underneath the chemical bench. Those will all have to come out if install presses and motorpac underneath
ACTION:
The Group feel that layout a is the most ideal solution without doing any re-construction in the lab. We have asked the shipboard staff, Moortgat to do some measurement if the new GC will fit in the area. Also we should go ahead and switch the 2 GCs with Cary and Dionex prior EXP341 South Alaska
UPDATE from ship(March 27)
Erik has already moved the GC's and IC/CARY to the opposite sides of the benches and reconnected all supplies. It does seem to be a good way to separate the water chemistry equipment from the rest of the lab.
2. Computer upgrades, David updated the group on the status of each instrument host for upgrading to Window 7 (include ACTIONS)
a. CHNS –Software is onboard, waiting to be installed
b. SRA – Software is onboard, waiting to be installed
c. XRD – Software is installed, Heather and MCS are working on it
UPDATE from ship(March 27)
David had some running around with software, am going to have to upgrade GC2 to the new OpenLab version of ChemStation because the old software is not compatible with Win/7, etc. We're working through all of the issues and don't expect any problems we can't overcome before the programmers leave on the 5th.
3. IC – A service call was conducted last week onboard. The Dionex rep replaced several parts and tubing in the system. The initial test run looks really good. However, a precision test has not been done
ACTIONS:
David is going to the ship this Thursday, and will work with Erik to finish precision test
UPDATE from ship(March 27)
IC service call went well, but we're still running standards for precision evaluation; may have to have him back if they don't go well.
4. New balances, replacing Cahn, are onboard. They are being installed and software tested. The gimble tables from both XRD and Chemistry labs will be removed when a suitable replacement furniture plan is purchased/built
ACTIONS: shipboard staff should come up with a remodeling plan for the specified space
UPDATE from ship(March 27)
Roy and Gus built a new tabletop for the corner that covers from the desk to the bench and back to almost the corner - looks nice, and it's a nice height to sit at and work with the balances. James Zhao is working on installing the balance software so we can do some testing. Erik is going to reorient the chem tech computer so the CD drive and USB ports can be accessed when time allows.
5. New coulometers are onboard and being installed and tested. New parts have been entered in AMS inventory system
6. New GCs are here on shore. The vendor rep are here to develop methods and working with our staff for training.
7. ICP – the in-house data reduction software was not working during EXP345, due to incompatibility with new Window operating system.
ACTIONS: This is on the work list for the programmers onboard in the next 2 weeks
8. ICP – The in-house data reduction program does not allow users to reload an old spreadsheet into LIMS without going through the entire calibration, lines selection process.
ACTIONS: We would like to submit a request for change to allow user reload an already processed spreadsheet with existing calibration parameters.