| Current mood: |  determined |
| Current music: | Holst - The Planets, Jupiter |
The Journey Thus Far
Boss is finally back. Hurrah, finally managed to have a full consultation and discussion today that lasted 1h, as I’m running out of ideas. Then again, Boss will be leaving in a few days again for overseas and we’ll be on our own again. Haiz, so many reactions done but the light at the end of the tunnel seemed to dim down whenever it seemed to appear brighter. Ah, that is research. If things were that simple, then it wouldn’t be research isn’t it? Of course things can get frustrating when things simply do not work out the way you expect it to. Looking at the Periodic Table, you expect trends but we learnt that there are so many deviations from the expected trends.
Resilience, one of my strongest traits, as indicated from the numerous personally tests. Yeah, work could be disappointing and frustrating at times but the key is not to give up. It takes a lot from me to really give up on something. Of course in research we can’t be looking at every single darn thing, as there is no end to it. So… if things don’t really seem to work out, probably just shelf it aside temporarily while looking into matters that look more promising. See the word “research”? At times we really have to RE-SEARCH, re-look into the things we done previously and you’ll be surprised that many a times we overlook certain issues.
My project had undergone numerous changes and even now I’m re-visiting some of older work. From tellurides to sulphides to selenides and back to tellurides. Ah, going to keep my nick as “Dr. Tellurium” since I started the project by working with tellurides. Selenium sounds like Tellurium’s sister though. Anyway briefly, my first work was involving the synthesis of metal telluride nanoparticles. Spent a great deal of time mainly with Ag2Te and PbTe. Of course also dealt briefly with other p-blk metal tellurides like Sb2Te3, Bi2Te3, SnTe and d-blk CoTe and NiTe. (Oops, centrifuge machine beeping for me to collect my Bi2Te3 sample…)
Talk about the twist of fate. Managed to resolved something that didn’t work previously but after that another problem cropped up. Aragh, as usual cannot trust everything the journal says… Okay, I’m supposed to prepare trigonal phase Selenium (t-Se) nanowires from amorphous red alpha-Se (a-Se). First need to prepare solution of Se in ethylenediamine (en) and stir in room temperature (RT) for 4h, followed by addition to water in ice bath with agitation to get opaque red suspension. Sounds easy? I didn’t get the opaque red the on the first try. Tried again today and observed carefully that some grey Se solids remained undissolved in en despite 5h of stirring at RT. So heated up the solution gradually till 70 deg C, and finally got a dark brown solution. I suppose that was the main reason for the previous failed reaction. Anyway I proceeded to transfer everything to H2O in ice bath and literally agitated the system by setting stirring speed to 1250 rpm which caused the stirrer bars to ‘jump’. At first the solution merely turned dark red but after 5 min of agitation, viola! Red a-Se! Yup, beautiful indeed, looks like tomato juice though, only thing it is a lot more toxic. Was so happy at first until I tried to work up… As usual, work up can be every synthetic chemist nightmare. Journal merely said that the a-Se was “readily collected by centrifugation”. So I set the centrifuge to 5500 rpm for 10 min and waited. TMD, majority of the solids turned grey, which means it transformed back to the more stable allotrope. Probably the heat generated from the centrifuge caused that. Hmm, running at 3000 rpm for 1 min also isn’t efficient enough to allow the solids to settle and darkening was also observed.
JR5702
Amorphous red a-Se
Beautiful... but thermally unstable.
Hmm, now stuck again… got my product but TMD cannot separate. Two solutions; either wait for the centrifuge machine to cool down and rerun the centrifuge, (if only I can run it in the freezer and yes the machine is INSIDE my freezer now so that I can quickly cool the machine down…) or to proceed to the next step, aka in-situ synthesis… Seems like the latter is a more viable option but I’m also interested to see how I can isolate the red a-Se. Suction filtration won’t work as the particle size is too small that it passes through the filter paper, so can also forget about letting the solids settle. Ah, worse case I store it in the freezer overnight and hopefully it will settle… (Let me try the centrifuge in freezer again…)
Okay, I was laughing non-stop when I really put my entire centrifuge machine into the freezer. Only concern is moisture built up which may cause short circuit. So far so good, did a trial separation up to 5000 rpm for 2 min. Overall product remains stable, red a-Se. Machine status also good, the inner rotor isn’t too heated up. However I stopped at the trial and kept the bulk product in the fridge for storage. The small sample that I isolated is now wrapped up in Al foil and in the vacuum desicator for drying. I will observe its overall stability during storage in the fridge after drying, before deciding whether to go ahead with the isolation of the rest of the product. I wonder if anyone has a centrifuge machine with a self cooling system (say liq. N2 cooled). I can’t be putting the centrifuge machine into the freezer all the time…
Anyway, I was having some discussions with my fellow graduate friends in lab. Times are bad. Some of our seniors who graduated with their PhD really have problems getting a job. This brings us to talk about Dr. Cai, who is probably the only PhD holder taxi driver in Singapore. For those who are unaware, Dr. Cai got retrenched after being in A* for 16 years. He got his PhD from Stanford and did his postdoc with a Nobel Laureate but was still unsuccessful in getting a similar job. So he is driving a taxi to earn a living and blogs about his work. Though I respect his resolve and resilience, I still think he should try to maximise his talent back in the academia field, probably overseas.
Haiz, sometimes we ask ourselves the question of “study so much for what?!” Ask an undergrad on whether he/she would like to do postgrad studies, most will simply reply “siao ah, study not enough ah?” Then again, a Bachelor’s degree is so common these days. For myself, I only got a 2nd Class Lower Honours, so I decided to get a higher degree to have a higher edge. Then again, a PhD itself is an overkill as itself may be an over-qualification of its own manifest. Heh, perhaps I should also get a taxi license to standby, “just in case”. Who knows in future that it may become common for taxi drivers to have a Bachelor’s degree. Or perhaps I can also open my own logistics company, “PKL Services – You say, we do, we Pao-Ka-Liao”. Heh, that perhaps may come in mind if I decide to take the Logistic Institute’s Master in Logistics and Supply Chain management degree.
Of course things aren’t as simple as it seems. Every job has its own difficulties and rewards. Then again I believe in S’pore as long as you are willing to work, you shouldn’t starve. The job may not be of your first choice but it should be sufficient to earn you a living. The only issue is what kind of lifestyle you want to lead and whether you can afford that lifestyle of your choice. All jobs of honest living should be treated with respect and dignity. Imagine who will be the one who clears your trash should there be no refuse workers working.
From Gustav Holst’s Planets, I dedicate “Jupiter – The Bringer of Jollity” as the music of the day. Been playing it repeated these days but never got sick of it. Let the music of Jupiter bring joy to all in their respective work. One of my favourite performances of this piece was by the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Eiji Oue. I just love the passion Oue-san expressed in his conducting. It really brings out the emotion of the entire piece. Simply amazing and beautiful. Bravissimo! Those who are interested can check out the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B49N46I39Y
And that as I say, is that. En Garde!
(Heh, haven’t used this end phrase for a long time…)
31 2302h
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