Overall, there was not much new this time around. As I was the only intern in the lab this week, I was responsible for doing all of the FDA tests (see previous entries such as week 3 for details), six to be exact, which took up the vast majority of my time. With the 4th of July having been on Tuesday, six FDA tests over four workdays do not leave much extra time.
By taking over the responsibilities such as the FDA tests, the professional chemists I work alongside are left with a bit more time on their hands to work towards some of their personal goals for the year. These seem to be various projects that aim to improve the overall function and ability of the lab processes, such as creating new procedures and chemical standards for instruments. Conversations that I have with my coworkers about this kind of stuff is helping me understand which exactly goes into the progression and improvement of industrial laboratories. It's quite different than what I experience in an academic environment at Juniata.
Contrary to my earlier statement about not having much extra time this week, I was able to squeeze in training on calibration of viscosity tubes (shown right). These are used by the workers at the hydro treater to determine viscosities of oils in a manual fashion. It is a classic intern duty to perform calibrations on these instruments every summer to confirm their performance. This is a rather tedious task that will fill any gaps in my workdays from now until the end of the month.
Additionally, this is another example of instrumentation that I would never gain exposure to without this internship. Like many of the devices I've talked about the past few weeks, I am continuously gaining experience with new instruments and chemical properties that are specific to this industry, providing a unique new set of skills.