Day 3 - FTIR (Spectroscopy) and Hydraulic Press

Hydraulic Press (Preparatory Steps)

Step1 : Cleaning all Equipment with Ethanol! So that samples made will not be contaminated.

Step 2:  Placing the samples into a manual crusher! 

Grinding it... HARD!

Step 4: Placing sample powders and making sure it is level!

Step 5: After encasing it, the equipment holding the sample is screw tightly into place.

Step 6: Making use of the (hidden) hydraulic system, up to 10 tonnes of Pressure is applied!

Removing equipment holding sample....Carefully!

The crushed powder under pressure forms into a clear circular sheet, allowing it to be placed into a FTIR sample holder.

Front view of the Hydraulic Press

FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy) Machine

 The sample is placed into the FTIR machine, where the sample will be beamed with a wide spectrum of light. These different lights will be blocked(absorbed) depending on the types of bonds the sample has. The remaining light then passes through the sample and is picked by the detector.
The (lowest) peak are recorded and the graph is printed for analysis.

Post 3 - Engineering for thought

Benedict:
All of the experiments today, most were new and unusual to me.
Polymerisation on one hand was something that I have learnt a bit in 'O' level chemistry. This was the first time I am able to appreciate the physical process of polymerisation that I has only read in textbooks on. FIrst, the monomer was collected then extracted, then converted to polymer using chemical processes.
The precipitation was slightly more complex than what I had did in 'A' level experiments.
FTIR and hydraulic press were new processes to me. However I was unable to see the process of FTIR as it happened.