Solo project

finally finished?

2011-03-06T09:48:00.003Z

After submitting last Thursday the revised thesis of inevitable minor modifications, this weekend was the first in the last three years where I had nothing specific to do! A most bizarre feeling. No complaints though.

A journal article of some of my thesis work has now been published, so the next milestone will be the thesis submitted to the university and British Library repositories; consider this post the penultimate, possibly!

congratulations

2011-01-15T19:54:00.002Z

Eight days of happiness; last Friday I was pleased to hear those immortal words: "congratulations, we are pleased to award you a PhD"; whilst at work, yesterday secured a first contract.

Now to begin with the minor modifications to the thesis...

Ten days!

2010-09-20T14:00:00.000+01:00

Not quite never, I had further tests to do but eventually finished in March or so. Managed to attend a grand total of ...one conferences. No research article is likely to be published before I finish, but at least I tried. I also tried to make an application to continue my research by noone is interested to support me. In retrospect, perhaps my research is too multi-disciplinary; biomass people are not interested in the waste aspect of my work whilst the waste people are not particularly interested in the chemistry of emissions control nor the more fundamental science. As for employment, who knows? Perhaps good news at the end of this week.

One of the earlier posts was about the frustration of being unable to use the university e-mail system from my e-mail client (claws-mail). Recently (!) was told that to use this system, the mail transmission setting needs to be configured to that of the internet service provider!!! I was astounded.

Anyway, the last 10 days are all about thinking of the practicalities of the thesis: revision of content, edit, revise, etc. Today I really think could be the final edit made earlier this morning! So much advice has been distributed about the difficulty to write, but for me I found this aspect the most enjoyable part. Maybe latex was the reason?

never again?

2009-09-23T20:56:00.004+01:00

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

2009-09-01T12:37:00.000+01:00

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

2009-08-27T17:16:00.003+01:00

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

2009-08-03T16:04:00.000+01:00

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?

2009-06-18T13:18:00.001+01:00

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

2009-03-16T18:40:00.002Z

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

2009-03-11T09:50:00.003Z

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...

In the doldrums

2008-11-26T12:23:00.002Z

"...if you could get it done before the end of the month that would be excellent." Yes, these very words amuse me each time I read them. They are concerning a request to perform icpms analysis of some biomass material; a request made way back in mid-September! That's right; approaching Christmas and no prospect in sight of completing this task.

So what went wrong? One word: bureacracy. One would have a thought that a so-called top-rated university would be efficient when it came to facilitating basic research. For example having chemicals on site. Or even glassware. Hell no. As for administrative documentation, more hell. First stop, a laboratory with furnace ovens (dry ash formation method of sample preparation): "have you done a risk assessment?". Just to burn biomass?

OK, let's see if the wet ash method can be used. "Have you received laboratory induction training? Access to these labs denied until training completed.". "No risk assessment or coshh forms? Go away, complete these and come back to us." Only upon error ridden form completion and submission to lab staff, is it admitted that actually, student researchers are not supposed to complete these forms! To protect the guilty, those who should be completing such forms shall not be mentioned...

Of course, wet chemistry requires chemicals; well to some "shock and awe", there are no chemicals on site. That's right, none. OK, just have to buy some then; allegedly it takes two weeks to order. As for the icpms, that is not available for a few weeks. In the meantime, an order is compiled for the flue gas analysis experiments, as well as chemicals, glassware. Remember, two weeks to order...

After a recent meeting, a furnace oven became available in another lab, but this time all the safety documents to be completed by the responsible persons. So, the oven was activated, but the technician responsible is, perhaps one could euphemistically say "too busy elsewhere" to help.

Back to the literature review then. Merry Christmas!

At long last

2008-10-21T16:17:00.002+01:00

A couple of milestones reached this month. After a year I finally have my own pc in our office! And today, was able to use my lab coat requested all those (12, 13?) months ago!

During the last few months I've been busy preparing my waste (i.e. bulk item size reduction) for subsequent combustion. The latest shock is the bureaucracy involved in starting my chemical analysis (trace metals, trace organics); risk assessments, coshh assessments, induction training, etc.

Oh and by the way, the annual (12 month) review was a success! :)

Dirty hands

2008-07-23T11:58:00.002+01:00

Last week, finally, I was able to gain some practical experience in the pilot laboratory. The biomass fuel was easily combustible and convenient to handle as pellets. However I am in the ridiculous situation of relying on the technician transferring data to his portable pc via usb output since the data logging pc does not have a usb port. It isn't exactly difficult to connect a pc to the campus network. Except that our infamous it department do not keep stock of cables longer than 5 metres! However they do have money to install a large lcd/plasma tv in the reception...

Now I have some data (albeit only 1 hour in a 1 day! :) ) to include in the forthcoming progress review meeting.

Assuming I am deemed to have made satisfactory progress I should be free to pursue my next target: municipal waste combustion sample preparation.

e-mail hell

2008-07-14T12:01:00.002+01:00

I never thought, with technology of today, that an organisation be capable of: losing messages; employing untrained "support staff", such that a basic request to use an e-mail client cannot be resolved. In the end, have given up using the university mail network altogether.

Since the last post I was hoping to have finally conducted some experimental work. Unfortunately, no. Further equipment failure, higher priority of other personnel and a mini holiday season have all contributed to additional delay.

In the meantime, I've managed to complete the postgraduate skills record and a draft document for a an imminent annual review, all using tex for further practical experience. I have also had some fun trying to remember my school level calculus. I'd been thinking: "where are all my school books now?!"; "how is it possible for my brain to be able to remember those differentiation/integration procedures after reading a maths book again, after so many years?"; "why didn't my maths teachers make this topic more relevant to my interests". Or maybe they did but I was busy not listening...

Another hurdle to overcome

2008-06-04T11:19:00.001+01:00

I've had a bit of frustration with latex and its apparent inability to cope with unicode. Apparently my tex distribution is old and I should try a new one; well I tried, failed and returned! Using xetex is a bit beyond my capability for now and I don't have to use unicode so I shall forget that option for now.

Towards the end of last month I received a newsletter in my e-mail inbox, which provides information about (post)graduates. Within the message was reference to a series of documents published by the Royal society of chemistry: Postgraduate skills record. The first hyperlink in the newsletter was erroneous so I won't make the same mistake and publish the current internet address here; if interested go to rsc web site and search

Proved to be interesting reading and I wished I had encountered earlier as it should augment nicely the administration documents issued by the university.

I'm awaiting discussion and hopefully budgetary approval to receive some laboratory equipment to allow me to proceed with my project. So far, I've done nothing! In the meantime I reviewing the skills record document, to complete the first phase (a few months late but better than never).

Oh, and I'm using tex to create a document to record my progress. :)

silent frustration

2008-05-01T15:14:00.001+01:00

To introduce, the objective of this log is to record the frustrations I have experienced so far during the first few months of my research project.

I can summarise as follows:
To date, still using my own portable computer, instead of a university-owned computer.
IT (non-existent) support of gnu/linux in general.
Unable to print to paper.
Poor functionality, performance of mtdata and poor support from supplier.
Ignorance of evolution.
Ignorance of latex, bibtex.
Ignorance of r.

As time progresses, no doubt there will be more to add to the list, but for now those will suffice. I hope to be able to publish later, further details of the 'observations' (I love understated diplomacy, :)) with some solutions to problems encountered. For now, back to solving the problems and learning new knowledge!