Experiment help!
▲ 1 r/Metric+1 crossposts

Experiment help!

Trying to figure out in lab toxicity tests with sediment, liquid mercury chloride, and amphipods. Right now we are in the stage of trying to figure out how to dose the field collected sediment with liquid mercury chloride solutions to reach dry concentrations of 0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2.5, 5, 10, and 15 ppm . At first we were trying to dose 250 g of wet sediment , shown in excel the amount in microliters of our different stock solutions but then when we ran samples through the direct mercury analyzer (DMA-80) we found we were off so then we tried dosing a smaller amount (5 g) and we were still reading way lower mercury amounts on the DMA than what our target concentration was. We spiked sediment in glass beakers, dropping mercury solution in the center and then having to hand mix and fold sediment continuously by hand with plastic spatulas for around 15 mins. I know there could be hotspots where the mercury is clustered in the sample because it wasn’t properly homogenized? At this point I think it has to be related to the mixing method because I believe our numbers are correct , I’m just so lost and any advice or resources anyone has would be greatly appreciated !

u/Whatsermeme — 10 days ago

Research help!! ASAP

So I am conducting sediment toxicity tests with Mercury so I’m dosing sediment to have at the bottom of beakers and having overlying water, and then I will add amphipods to the beakers.

I'm going to have 8 target mercury concentrations: 0.1, 0.25, 1, 2.5, 5, 10, and 15 mg/kg (ppm) on a dry weight basis and basically my advisor told me to set up an excel sheet to do calculations. We won't have the moisture content yet so she said for now to assume 50% and we can change it later; ex: 1 ppm dry means 0.5 ppm wet. In my notes I have we're adding on a wet weight basis but we need to verify with dry weight? Here's where I'm confused... we're going to have different liquid HgCl2 stock solutions that we aliquot from to reach my concentrations (she says figure out which stock solutions like does this mean 100 ppm , 500, 1000 ppm, ??) ... for example I wrote down if have 1000 ppm stock solution how much mercury do I need to add to get a concentration of x ? (in a wet weight basis not dry weight). She said first I need to determine how much mercury I need to add per 1 gram of sediment (and then I'll just have to multiply that by how many grams of sediment I'm actually adding) 

How should I go about this? I’m still confused right now. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thank you !!

reddit.com
u/Whatsermeme — 2 months ago

Sediment dosing help

*Urgent* ahhh I need this figured out ASAP
So I am conducting sediment toxicity tests with Mercury so I’m dosing sediment to have at the bottom of beakers and having overlying water, and then I will add amphipods to the beakers.

I'm going to have 8 target mercury concentrations: 0.1, 0.25, 1, 2.5, 5, 10, and 15 mg/kg (ppm) on a dry weight basis and basically my advisor told me to set up an excel sheet to do calculations. We won't have the moisture content yet so she said for now to assume 50% and we can change it later; ex: 1 ppm dry means 0.5 ppm wet. In my notes I have we're adding on a wet weight basis but we need to verify with dry weight? Here's where I'm confused... we're going to have different liquid HgCl2 stock solutions that we aliquot from to reach my concentrations (she says figure out which stock solutions like does this mean 100 ppm , 500, 1000 ppm, ??) ... for example I wrote down if have 1000 ppm stock solution how much mercury do I need to add to get a concentration of x ? (in a wet weight basis not dry weight). She said first I need to determine how much mercury I need to add per 1 gram of sediment (and then I'll just have to multiply that by how many grams of sediment I'm actually adding) 

reddit.com
u/Whatsermeme — 2 months ago