Lab work is definitely different here. Making almost all your chemicals from scratch gives you a whole new perspective on how to measure water quality parameters. Before working in the lab at USF I had only used the Hach kits. With those you take your test tube a little sample dump in some packets of something, cook, then voila total phosphorous. Now I really get to play chemist. I have to make up liquid chemicals, then mix those together, work with strong acids, boil the strong acids (which takes a lot longer than you would expect), mix some more stuff together, and eventually somewhere in there I have something I can use to measure total phosphorous. The advantages is that this way I get to make all sorts of pretty colors… Phosphorous gives me pink/red and blue, ammonia gives me green and yellow, I just need something that makes orange, violet, and indigo....
Ooooo...ahhhhh....
Suzie
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