Week 9: Please HPLC, Please Keep Working!

On Monday I took more samples of the Leap tank sediments for both 2-CAP and TNT. I then spent the rest of the day running Leap tank samples on the HPLC. The HPLC was actually behaving quite well on Monday. 

On Tuesday I did an acetonitrile extraction on the Leap tank samples that weren't put into storage. I took 264 hour samples first then did the acetonitrile extraction on each bottle (the 66, 74, and 78 inch depth bottles) to try and pull out any 2-CAP that had been adsorbed by the sediment. After doing that I could run the acetonitrile (which would now have the 2-CAP in it) in the HPLC to see where any missing 2-CAP went. Unfortunately things didn't quite go as Dimin and I had expected and there were no 2-CAP peaks in the acetonitrile extractions. I even tried another extraction the next day but the results were the same. Dimin and I were pretty confused and we're still thinking about any solutions to the problem. I ran several Leap tank samples while doing the extraction, but I still have many more samples to run.

On Wednesday I also ran more samples on the HPLC. Wednesday was the day that the interns went to tour the OHSU school of medicine but I didn't go because Wednesday also marked the 1 month point of storage for the Rock Creek samples that JP had collected. Wednesday was the time to take the samples out of storage and start testing them. Just like I did for the 1 week Rock Creek samples, I combined the TNT and 2-CAP Falcon tubes of sediment into amber bottles inside the glovebox and sealed them up anaerobically. I took them out to leave on the bench top since I ran out of time to do the 2-CAP spike. Since I didn't have time to do the 2-CAP spike on Wednesday, I did it on Thursday and it took up a majority of my day. For the first half of the day we had a group meeting but afterwards I went straight back to the lab to do the 2-CAP spike, since I had to take T=0, 1, and 2 hour samples before I left. 

Friday was spent running more samples on the HPLC and taking a 22 hour sample of the Rock Creek 1 month storage sediments. Unfortunately the HPLC had to be back washed again (where we turn the column upside down and runn 100% acetonitrile through it to clean it) and I went to a focus group for a while, so I wasn't able to run as many samples as I would have liked. I'll have to run all of them next week but thankfully Dimin will run a few more for me. Until next week then, I hope the HPLC continues to behave itself.