Ingrid's Day 2 Sr.Project

 Ingrid Wu's Day 2 Blog

May 09 2023 

26°C Thunderstorm

Today, I spent 7.5 hours on my senior project, and I spent the majority of the time on running the control test and fixing the air-leaking problems for my carbon capture machine box. 

Starting at 10:12 am, I launched my first control test to reduce confounding variables for my box, so that every ppm decreased will be due to solution of Ca(OH)2.

However, the test didn't meet my expectation, because after 2 hours of testing the CO2 concentration in the box, the concentration dropped to 342ppm at 12:12pm from 1047ppm. According to my experience of CCS, this rate of change is way too quick, since a normal rate of change for a control test with no catalyst in the box should be around 0.6ppm/min. 

Then, I quickly realized that maybe the box is not sealed enough making the air inside lead out to drop down the CO2 level, so I spend 30 minutes fixing this problems by taping nano tape on the box edge to decrease the space between the box and the lid. 

Then, I brought the box outside again, but the test failed again. At 12:33pm, the ppm level is 1401ppm, but after 2 hours at 02:33pm, the CO2 concentration level became 333ppm again, which still shows a sharp negative association. 

I couldn't figure out what happened, so I moved the box inside and ran the test with my last hope. Surprisingly, it worked!!!! At 02:45pm, it was 1181ppm in the box, and at 05:45, it was still high as 913ppm. The phenomenon is surprising, so I became optimistic again. 

Finally, I devoted around 30 mins to plan out the details of what I will be doing tomorrow: I will test how the concentration of Ca(OH)2 affect the CCS process.