never again?

As I saw the last particle of fuel pass through the Archimedes' Screw and drop into the combustion chamber, I couldn't help but smile as I thought about the possibility that this could be my final use of this equipment. Looking back I considered the experience to be frustrating (at the delays for one reason or another) and tedious (not very stimulating having to maintain operation for 2-4 hours for each test).

My next hope is that my chemical analysis for organic and metal traces proves to be a success. On to the next phase...By the way I am not responsible for the reference to Bob Marley, although I have to say the song selection was appropriate. ;)

an imminent convincing argument

For the last 10 weeks, work towards the annual review has been in progress. The task has been to create a 5000 word report for submission to supervisors and other review meeting attendees. For this project I made the early decision to use latex to produce documentation. Most of the time, the results have been satisfactory, but occasionally there have been frustrating moments, the latest of which was with bibtex. Can't get the apacite style to work so having to revert to apalike instead. It will have to do for now as the review is due to occur my the end of the month at the latest.

This is a list of the tools I use and how I use them:
Jedit: text-editor
Gimp: image editor
Imagemagick: image viewer, used to view output from gnuplot
Gnuplot: data visualisation (i.e. creating graphs from data sets)
R: data visualisation, specifically of linear regression analysis but capable of a WHOLE lot more

Perhaps in my next post I'll show some example latex files. For now, the draft document has been sent to those supervisors for review, in the meantime I'm going to start work on creating the presentation which is also required as part of the review. Unlike last year, this time I am going to change from openoffice to latex beamer class to produce the presentation in a presentation mode pdf document.

Following the herd, I've also decided to open my profile to the public...

Steady progress

A mini milestone reached this week; successfully completed all fuel mixture tests for one biomass fuel. Today's test was the last for bioethanol, mixed with rdf (70 % by weight of the latter). Did not manage to achieve the ideal correlation between combustion temperature variation (dependent variable) and waste content in the fuel mixture. However, happy to have got a data set. With luck five more tests to go!

the joy of latex

There is a common saying that a good scientific paper/presentation/poster, no matter how well produced, cannot hide poor data. For the last few weeks I had decided that I needed to get some conferences and publications submitted; every PhD thesis features 5-10 at a minimum and I am nearing the end of the second year with a grand total of ... nil. Whilst I had frustrating fun writing a poster abstract, executive summary and a0 poster, the un-deniable fact was that I had not generated sufficient data to produce something of any value.

Looking back, I had been to far too relaxed about the failure to get the combustion apparatus in operation during the first year. There were problems with replacement parts, delays with delivery of new equipment, lack of knowledge of existing equipment (!) etc. But, to quote a politician: "we are where we are"!

Recently I was informed that the papers and presentations I had submitted to review were poor; simply put not enough data. The moral of the story, start work as soon as possible.

August has now arrived. Whilst technical staff are away on holiday (therefore preventing any analytical tests being completed) there is a chance for me to complete all combustor tests. My dream is to complete all by September, so I will never have to see the combustor room again!

¿che passa?

Time for an update. A few days before my last post, thermocouples were finally tested. No comment as to why this information isn't already recorded and regularly maintained. Personally I would have thought that this type of task is done annually by first year students.

After that I changed my attention to the dioxin analysis apparatus. Got all parts together and ready for the first fuel combustion, a wheat-municipal waste mixture. Then my first mistake became apparent, the gc inlet liner was too big for the gc-ms. I had simply bought the wrong part; looking back I asked myself, should I check the inlet dimensions? No, they'll have at least two ports won't they? Little did I know how that silly mistake would cost. So I spent subsequent week looking for a machine elsewhere (i.e. another university) to help. Luckily, living near London proved to help me. Refreshing to be able to walk into a lab and start work, none of the risk assessment, safety induction nonsense, can't do attitude here! More bad news: the analysis failed. Despite the best efforts of the technician (a helpful guy), with the standard, no peaks eluted. Then with one of my samples, the desorption was simply too poorly controlled, so the column was overloaded with dirt. Now I know why £15 000 thermal desorption units are invested in; was always risky trying this thermal desorption technique on the cheap without good temperature control to the inlet liner.

Some good news though, managed to obtain some operation time for the combustion of my fuel mixtures, four in total. I know, a pitiful quantity, but this is pilot lab scale, not typical chemistry bench scale work! A little serendipity also came my way; fluidised bed agglomeration forced me to change the bed material, which prompted me to think of this as future journal article content; after all, in the absence of any laboratory work I needed to find content from somewhere. So, whilst awaiting delivery of new (correct!) liners, electron microscopy analysis will be my saviour!

a dozen days

That's right, after 16 months of "research", I have achieved a mere 12 days in the pilot actually doing some practical work.

By now I was expecting to write my first journal article after collecting the initial set of experimental results. I've also written an application for a fellowship, postponing my "research" for three months if successful. However I needed to obtain departmental permission, which was rejected because of a preference to concentrate on completing the "research". As soon as questions were asked about experimental data and thesis structure, I knew my application was doomed. Admitting such a pitifully low level of actual "research" was almost certain to open a Pandora's box, so it seemed to me the best option was to withdraw from making my application. Goodbye bursary and useful experience.

I forgot to add to my previous post, this time last week my fellow students and I were in possession, for the first time, of a key to access to the laboratories! All we need now is equipment that is in operation!

Could not continue

Last week I was more positive for the future; at last, some progress! For the first time, the combustion equipment was in continuous operation for 4 days (Friday reserved for equipment shutdown), in order to test the thermocouples (which were not well documented but that another story) and install the necessary software. I decided to use my previous desktop computer because it had 4 usb ports for the data logger (and surprise surprise, the existing computer doesn't).

So, entering this week I was expecting to be able to test the sample dioxin analysis collection apparutus (see photograph). My hopes were crushed by the regular review meeting, to be told that yet again, the equipment will be off operation for two weeks; new duct work for the additional oxy-firing functionality, but more importantly the environmental management audit (iso14001 accreditation). I'll be amazed if our departmental labs pass this audit: the places are a complete mess. Unlabelled samples, tools ALWAYS randomly left all over the area, redundant 'equipment' (i.e. non-functional ancient junk), etc. Time will tell. Whilst that is going on, I shall keep a low profile off campus...