Friday, July 29, 2011
As some of you know, I am currently a Ph.D student in my final year and at this moment I can say I am working very hard running my experiments. Why do I say so? Well, part of the reason is because I'm the earliest person to reach the lab and the last person to leave the lab for any single day (accept if I have something urgent going on). I run 1 to 3 experiments per day depending on the situation that day. Why I say this, you'll know when I list down some of the problems I face when I run my experiments.
The experiments that I or other Ph.D students run are no ordinary experiments. The experiments are not at all similar to those that the undergraduates carry out in the lab. We are running our own individual experiments for research and discovery purpose. We are seeking for new information, new knowledge, new theory, new discovery. We want to find out about something. We want to see whether this and this works or not. We want to see what will happen when we do this and this and so on. Of course, this will be based on our literature review and hypothesis. Our experimental set-up is in most case unique and not similar to others. If it is similar though, there will be perhaps 2, 3 or 4 almost similar experimental set-up. I'm referring to the experimental set-up that we create ourselves.OK, the main thing I want to share here is the list of problems, challenges, hurdles that interrupt the process of me running my experiment. Some of the problems are as stated below.
- process tubing leaks
- fitting leaks
- o-ring burst
- gas suddenly finish
- furnace suddenly cannot operate
- heating tape spoil
- heating tape controller spoil
- reactor easily broken (quartz)
- support for catalyst broken
- Not enough or no liquid to collect for analysis
- Gas that is collected in a container could not be analyzed
- Dirty GC column
- Column not suitable for our products
- GC need to be calibrated
- No gaseous available, need to order gaseous from company
- Rota flow meter not reliable, cannot control flow of carrier gas
- No mass flow controller
- Vacuum fitting cannot be tightened
- Data logger for temperature monitoring software has problem
- thermocouple seal leak and fluid penetrate through wire and flooded the data logger
- Quartz tube after experiment are very dirty and difficult to clean
- No water bath, so I have to used my own condenser.
- Sabotage (this happen to my colleague. Her gas tank tubings were cut).
Please be informed that I'm not listing all these problems to discourage or demotivate some of you who may consider to pursue your Ph.D with experimental work. What I'm trying to highlight here is that if you are running experiments for your research work, you will face with tonnes of challenges. You need to stay strong and motivated. You need to focus at the end result. Of course there will be some obstacles, problems, delays and many other things that will result to you feeling down. I will be lying if I say I'm always motivated. I faced numerous expected and unexpected challenges. It's really up to me to react on the problem and overcome those challenges.
In addition, during this critical time, we need to always be positive and pray to God for assistance. On top of that, when ever we have experimental problems or delays, we need to have plan A, B, C and so on which means we can do other things such as drafting technical papers, search for latest literature review, learn related softwares etc.
If any of you have some good experience to share, feel free to contact me. I would love to hear from you as well. Cheers...
OK, that's enough for now. I'll share later updates with you soon. For my fellow Muslim chemical engineers (student or practicing), I wish you Happy Ramadhan and hope all of us can be fasting with peace.
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In addition, during this critical time, we need to always be positive and pray to God for assistance. On top of that, when ever we have experimental problems or delays, we need to have plan A, B, C and so on which means we can do other things such as drafting technical papers, search for latest literature review, learn related softwares etc.
If any of you have some good experience to share, feel free to contact me. I would love to hear from you as well. Cheers...
OK, that's enough for now. I'll share later updates with you soon. For my fellow Muslim chemical engineers (student or practicing), I wish you Happy Ramadhan and hope all of us can be fasting with peace.
...................................................................................................................
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Have you downloaded my free "Choosing Alternative Fuel" Ebook? If not, then please download it here. It's Free and on top of getting the free ebook, you'll get eCourse on Alternative Fuel. It's a good and easy way to add more valuable information to yourself.
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