Today the calibration set is running. The rotovap systems are now clean. I showed the others how to clean the system and now they are consistently getting much cleaner aliquots from the rotovap systems. It appears that the rotovaps are used for a lot of work and need a sodium hydroxide cleaning to remove most of the residue built up from all the other testing. After finding a bottle of NaOH pellets I went through safe handling and cleaning using a 1M solution. This removed the ever present background in the samples. The procedure I outlined for them was to use about 100mL of 1M NaOH in the flask, swirl it about every 10-15 minutes, and let it sit for about 1 hour. Then rinse the flask at least 3 times with DI water testing for neutral pH at the end, then rinse with solvent.
The access to LIMS was established today, but by the time I got the cal series running and the test samples run (checking the rotovaps, see above) we were out of time to do any work with the connection. It does appear that there is adequate speed to be able to perform analysis on the CERES-ANALYST system. I will see how long it takes to send a few files that direction tomorrow.
Here is the picture du jour:
Banana plant growing behind the lab
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