Week Six: Why Bio-Binder?

Hey everyone!

Time is really starting to fly by. I cannot believe that we are already in the sixth week of research. Seems like yesterday I had no idea what I was doing for my senior research project. So, as you may remember, my project recently changed to focus more on bio-based binder.

One of the reasons I am looking into bio-binder is because of the great environmental benefits to our society.

1.  Since resources such as rice, sugar, and corn are very readily available, this allows the US economy's demand for petroleum decrease; therefore, it is renewable. 

2.  Crude oil is a scarce resource and it used in a variety of ways. When heated up to a certain degree, it acts as the gas we put in our car; this is called "crude oil distillation process". But when crude oil is heated to 340º F, a residue remains and that's called asphalt. By replacing asphalt with bio-binder, we are not depleting a natural resource.

3.  Heat islands are when the temperature of a city is significantly higher than the temperature of a rural area nearby. If the temperature is hotter, then naturally, people will use their air conditioning more. This cause air pollution. With the use of bio-binder, heat islands will decrease and pollution will decrease.

4.  It is also cost competitive. One gallon of bio-binder will cost around 54 cents; one gallon of asphalt costs around $2. In the long run, US will save millions of dollars just by partially replacing it.
(Side note: I don't know if this means that taxes will decrease. But let's hope that's the case because who likes taxes am I right?? I just had to file my taxes this week so I feel as if a lot of my money has just bounced out of my bank account.)

5. The temperature required to produce asphalt uses a lot of energy. So, bio-asphalt binder can lower the production temperature of hot mix asphalt, which may decrease paving costs by 30%, and reduce greenhouse emissions by 30%. This basically means that will be a reduced carbon footprint.

I just got the results back from the DSR testing from last week, but let's save that for next week. I will attach the presentation in next week's post. I know this is usually the time to share my latest adventure in painting, but honestly it looks so bad I can't even look at it. So maybe next week or the week after.

BYE!

P.S. Good luck to everyone on upcoming college results! I hope you all get into your dream school :)

Week Five: The New Project

Hey everyone!

I hope everyone enjoyed their spring break. I don't think I took a spring break; in fact, I probably went to the lab more often than usual! As the title of the post indicated, this week I began the preparation for a new project. Selected participants of SCENE have to create a well-polished poster for the Arizona Science and Engineering Fair, in which the winners will continue to compete in the Intel Science and Engineering Fair. Since the results from the previous experiments came out inconclusive, I was advised by my on-site mentor, Professor Shane Underwood, to take on a new project that incorporated a biological and environmentally-efficient perspective.

THE NEW PROJECT:

Bioasphalt binder is an asphalt alternative made from non-petroleum based renewable resources. Examples of the renewable resources that are used to replace asphalt are sugar, molasses, rice, corn, or potato starches.

20 grams of bio-binder arrived from North Carolina State University. This bio-binder was made from rice husk ash, which smelled like really bad barbecue sauce..

Anyway, before we jumped to anything, we had create an experimental procedure. The main idea that we are focused on is figuring out if it is possible to replace asphalt with bio-binder that can still match the required conditions.

THE EXPERIMENT:

In this experiment, I have designed a control (0% bio-binder) and created an increase increments of bio-binder (1%, 2%, 10%). But since we only received twenty grams of bio-binder, we have to take into account that residue (since asphalt is sticky and clings to everything). Assuming that there is 50% residue, we need to make sure that there is at least 0.2 g of bio-binder is usable for testing.

Percent Bio-Binder            Mass of Virgin Asphalt                      Mass of Bio-Binder
             0%                                     5 g                                                       0 g
             1%                                  4.95 g                                                  0.05 g
             2%                                    4.9 g                                                    0.1 g
            10%                                    4.5 g                                                    0.5 g
 
Then, these samples will be tested in the Dynamic Shear Rheumeter (DSR), which is a new machine that will characterize the viscous and elastic behavior of asphalt. It will measure the phase angle, the  modulus, and the stiffness of asphalt. If the phase angle is between 50 and 90, it is a durable sample. If there is an increase in the G* modulus, this means the the phase angle is lower and the sample is stiffer.

Unfortunately, this is it for today.

See you next week!

Seerat Jajj

Week Four: Inside MALDI

Hi everyone!

Hope you guys had a great week– I know I did! This week I primarily focused on researching and learning how MALDI works and the physics behind it. As you can recall, MALDI is a machine that is designed for rapid microbial identification (can pick up small molecules and analyze its components). But I never understood how MALDI was able to do that.

For the past three weeks, I showed you how we made the sample slides so now I will illustrate what happens inside MALDI.

1) When the sample is prepared, it is placed inside a high vacuum environment.

2) A precise laser ionizes the sample, meaning it converts the molecule into ions by removing electrons.

3) When these molecules are converted to ions, a "cloud" of proteins is released and accelerated by an electric charge.

4) Inside the machine is one ring, which is called the ring electrode. The ring electrode is used to record the Time of Flight. It will record when the proteins pass through the ring, which is then calculated using a formula from the time recorded.

5) Then, the proteins are detected by the sensor (as shown in the picture), which creates a spectrum that shows what the protein makeup of each sample (what ions is it composed of).

6) Then the spectrum that is created is compared against a large database of spectra ranging from bacteria to peptides that have been precisely characterized.

To summarize, the sample goes through desorption, ionization, acceleration, separation, and then detection.

This is what a MALDI spectrum looks like. On the y-axis is the intensity of the peaks and on the x-axis is m/z, which is the mass-to-charge ratio. The M stand for mass and the z stands for charge number of ions. The underlined numbers on the top of the peaks are the values of mass-to-charge for ions observed in the instrument. These peaks correspond to the same molecule, just with different charges. 

I know this was a tedious topic for those who don't like physics, but I definitely learned a lot more about the behind the scenes of MALDI. To balance the theoretical portion of this post, I'll show you what I did outside of research. (I kept my promise, I finished the painting before the end of February!)

Anyway, that is it for this week. Hope you liked it!

Seerat Jajj