I have a lot to say today because I haven't posted in 2 days. Actually I posted again yesterday, but actually it was just a edit and amendment of a post from day 25, July.
I have been doing some chemistry experiments none of which are quite finished and in reality probably will not give me much information in the area I am looking but it was fun doing it. I learned a lot of practical stuff that sometimes you take for granted. Like the need for a little better than average dexteriy, plus some creativity when it comes to setting up the typo of experiment you are going after. My plans were multitasked actually. first I wanted to play a little with amylase and starch and this was in part due to a search for a good electrophoretic medium that I could make with stuff available. YES I actually had the amylase enzyme concentrate in a bottle .... may have been a littel old and could have broken down a bit. dunno! All I found is that there appear to have been some changes made to the corn starch of today and that of when I was about 9 years old. Back then I remember mixing it with a little water and getting a metal bandaide box full of gelatinous thick opaque gunk. that I could play with if there was a small amount of water added. well this stuff so far has stayed white and only appears to have the colloidal property in water when it is not disturbed much and it doesn't or "has not yet" turned the grayesh opaque funky stuff of my 9 year old experiment. if you stir it up much it gets more watery again if you let it sit it gets nice and thick but vigourous agitation results in the dropping out of colloid. don't know it the starches are shorter today or longer or less hydrogentated.... there's a question for any of you chemical curious persons out there. A professional who is sure of the answer would be acceptable as well, in fact quite welcome. more ot this continued as I tried to see if I could find a good substitute for maybe a gycerol or what not. But I guess I was to scatter brained and wanted to do to many things this not eliminating enough variables to do much good in my search but at least made for fun and some unpredictability. SOOOO .... I then turned my attention to the use of the amylase to see if I could manipulate the molecular sizes of the starches by cutting some of them up. I had hypothesized that particle size had was greater than it had been and that maybe they just couldn't colloidalize. The amylase succeded in only getting the starch in water to take on the consistancy of milk for quite some time but then it returned to the gummy thick stuff than when stirred changed to the milky stuff only temporarily. I measured temperature change in all the mixes to see if the different amounts of amylase resulted in any temp change due to the enzymatic action but,... twas not to be. Then I decided I't try to see if aluminum oxide mesh 80 to 100 could be made to stay in medium like liquid soap for long enough to be used as a polymixed medium that I was guessing could be used with a electric + and - polarity at two ends separating out my molecular mix. HOLD ON I AM GOING TO POST THIS FOR SAFTY SAKE CAUSE THIS IS GONNA GET LONG.
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