Won't use the Day titles anymore after this. In case I forget to post.
Anyways, lots of great stuff today. Dr. Dabkowski showed us a PowerPoint and a lot of interesting demos, with polymers, along with some videos. After each demo, Dr. Dabkowski gave us the materials to perform the experiments. They were very interesting and he explained what was happening. This was exciting since I had performed some of these experiments before but had not been sure about the processes
List of some of the experiments:
Polyvinyl alcohol with sodium borate (use Borax)
Elmer's glue and sodium borate
Using Velcro to show cross-linking within polymers
Using inside of diaper (unused) to show hydrophilic polymers
Affect of salt on water absorption by polymer - polyacrylic acid
Another hydrophilic polymer, Polysnow
Video showing flame resistant polymer (full of water)
Hydrophobic polymer used to absorb oil and floats on water
Silly putty
Rubber balloon-stretch to form crystals-exothermic, feel on upper lip
Use liquid nitrogen to change properties of polymers
Toured facilities at Conte Center, it is an awesome place, and saw available instrumentation. It is quite a bit so will just set up link to instrumentation. Can't wait til I start the research!!
I will warn you. I am not an English major so forgive any spelling mistakes and simplistic dialogue. :-) Sorry.
In this blog, I will be posting anything I run across that seems interesting or anything I am currently working on. I had previously used it to keep track of what I did at UMass - during my time as a RET
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