Day 5 - And we're off!

I arrived at 9 AM and left at 5:30 PM; it was a full day in the CERES lab for Anna, Adama, and me.

Major points of the day:

1. Air Liquide finally got back to Anna. Helium and nitrogen purities are both 99.995%.
2. Laboratory reagent blanks analyzed over the weekend displayed a few small peaks that will likely fall below our calibration curve and a few larger peaks that would probably quantitate, but don't line up with standard Rts or are absent on the second column.  
3. A leak was found in the nitrogen line prior to the in-line O2, Air... filter. It took some time, mainly due to locating tools, but the leak is no more. However, I cannot attest to the state of the filter and CERES does not have a spare on hand.
4. It was found that the 1/4'' Swagelock nut on the makeup gas adapter was loose on both the front and back detectors. Both were tightened, but I'm not sure how long they have been this way. After bringing the system back up and allowing time to equilibrate, I observed the lowest instrument background yet; the front detector came down by 35% while back detector came down by just over 20%. Instrument blanks are running over night.
5.  CERES staff insisted that one of their small pumps could not be hooked up to two roto-vaps. However, they felt confident they could do batches of 8/day using only two roto-vaps; a rate comparable to OSU. We will see how tomorrow goes.
6. CERES staff reviewed necessary SOPs and were instructed to watch OSU's LFT extraction training video this evening. 
7. Dialysis on the first batch of field deployed PSDs was started. The batch includes trip, field and an extraction blank.Surrogates were added to all samples. CERES staff are filling out benchsheets thoroughly.
8. All materials needed to complete the first extraction batch are in the oven tonight at 325 C and will be ready by morning.

The plan for tomorrow is to oversee the remainder of the first PSD extraction batch, evaluate instrument blanks, inject a call standard, shoot a handful of singles, set-up for the next batch of PSD dialysis, potentially set the calibration to run through the evening.