Hello! My name is Gil Wondrak and I am currently a senior at BASIS Tucson North. At the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year, we seniors we were offered the unique opportunity to pursue an internship, known as an SRP, or Senior Research Project at BASIS, in the last trimester of this school year (February-May). The Purpose of the SRP is to get our hands dirty and receive first hand experience in areas of study or research that interests us or that we intend to pursue as a career later in life.
For my SRP, I will be working approximately 24 hours a week in a lab in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Arizona. My main supervisor/advisor in the lab is Dr. Heien, however I will also be performing experiments and conducting projects under the direct supervision of one of his graduate students.
My Project will be split up into two separate smaller ones....
- In my first project I will be developing polymer electrodes in the detection of various neurotransmitters (such as dopamine, etc.). I will be making these polymer electrodes from PEDOT (poly-ethylenedioxythiophene). The goal of of research in this area is to develop polymer coatings that detect neurotransmitters for not only carbon fiber electrodes, but for electrodes of other materials as well.
- In my second Project I will be attempting to make a Raspberry Pi (essentially a mini computer) into a portable lab. In other words, my goal will be to program this mini computer into a machine that could run an experiment without using much equipment.
I look forward to this incredible project and opportunity that lies ahead of me. Feel free to leave any comments or questions on my future posts, and I will happily answer them!
Hi Gil! What kind of polymer are you working on synthesizing?
ReplyDeleteHi Mrs. Jewett! Dr. Heien's lab has discovered that by using the polymer, poly(3 4-ethylenedioxythiophene), abbreviated as PEDOT, in combination with, Nafion, and a solvent, a very effective coating for carbon fiber electrodes can be made. This coating is incredibly useful since it prevents any biomaterial, such as a blood clot, from attaching to the electrode, therefore increasing it's effectiveness in detecting neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, in the brain.
DeleteMy job now is to take this polymer and apply it to not only carbon fiber electrodes but also one's made of platinum and various other materials. HOWEVER, I will NOT be able to use the exact same solution since platinum has varying properties from carbon fiber. Therefore, I will have to pick different concentrations of PEDOT and Nafion and I will also have to determine the exact voltage range that I will apply to the electrode that will allow the reactants to react and form a coating on the platinum electrode.
This is just a very brief explanation and I will explain this in more detail in my next post :)