Lab Renovations!

Exciting changes are happening in the Ault group as one of our labs undergoes some renovations!  We have been working hard the past week to clean up and prep the lab for the construction crew.  Most of the instruments were moved into temporary storage and out of harms way for the duration of the renovation.  Pictured to the right, the large and heavy Raman spectrometer could not be moved and was instead wrapped up and barricaded behind protective layers of tables, freezers, and boxes.  The Raman spectrometer needs to be protected from any dust, bumps, or other hazards of construction.

Above, the future site of our brand new desks and cabinets.  On the right, grad students, Hongru, Dan, Diana, and Becky, taking extra boxes and a lot of packing peanuts out to recycling during the lab cleanup.  We are very excited to be moving into our new lab space within the next couple weeks!  Be sure to check back for pictures when the renovation is complete!

Analysis at the Pacific Northwest National Lab

Analysis at the Pacific Northwest National Lab

This winter, Dr. Andrew Ault and 2nd year graduate student Amy Bondy, along with Dr. Kerri Pratt and 1st year graduate student Eric Boone, traveled across the country to visit the Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL). Although we experienced some flying difficulty due to the "Polar Vortex" and a frozen fuel line on our flight out of Detroit, we eventually arrived in Richland, Washington only a day late and after quite a few unexpected tours of airports out west. 

While at the national lab, we used some of the unique instrumentation available there to analyze aerosol samples collected from SOAS. With Alex Lasking as our host, and the help of his postdoc BingBing Wang, we were able to get up and running samples on the computer-controlled SEM (CCSEM) in no time! We were able to capture images, elemental maps (lots of pretty colors!), and get statistical information about the aerosols from many of the SOAS samples. With access to the lab 7 days a week, we were able to collect a ton of data! 

Although we spent almost all our time in lab, we were also able to have some fun in Richland. Cooking dinner and watching movies together in the evenings gave us a way to recharge before heading back to the lab that night. Additionally, the warm weather (up to 55 degrees) and sunshine in the "desert" of Washington was very welcome after the temperatures we left behind in Ann Arbor!