August 8

Post date: Aug 16, 2011 11:16:03 PM

So, we centrifuged the samples and have now finally completed preparing the samples. Adam scheduled an appointment

with the Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrophotometer (ICP-OES) last month, and today's the big day!

So, we took all 180 of our test tubes and went to the lab. How the machine works is it sucks up the liquid sample, and

then there's a chamber with argon molecules which takes the sample to another chamber where the sample is ionized. When

the sample is ionized, light is produced, and each element in the sample emits a specific wavelength of light and the ICP

-OES measures these wavelengths and gives us results. In summary, the sample is heated and the specific trace elements

present are counted.