POA Essay

For my practicum project, I worked under Dr. Efrain Rodriguez and Stephanie Hong who works for the University of Maryland, College Park in the department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. I specifically worked as a lab assistant in his inorganic materials chemistry lab. Overall his lab aims to promote energy sustainability and conservation and technological advancement. Specific to the project that I worked on, which was researching the chemical properties of oxygen storage materials, the applications pushed the agenda of producing clean energy and making gas sensing more efficient.

A typical day in the lab consisted of meeting with Stephanie as a brief start to a concept, article, or material that she found. Then, I would proceed with solid state synthesis with binary metal oxides to create various AB2O4 compounds. During this, the equipment I used for this process was a mortar and pestle, pelletizer, vacuuming pump, flame sealer and furnace. However, as my permissioning increased, solid state synthesis increased in difficulty because of the use of more sensitive metal oxides, meaning I had to use the glovebox. Additionally, I would characterize the material by doing X-ray diffraction and TGA (this was not daily though).

SGC discussions on climate change and global warming definitely helped with the understanding of the broader context of the research, which led to a more in depth understanding of the whole research. For example, X-ray Diffraction and Thermogravimetric Anaylsis are techniques used to characterize metal oxides. XRD displays the structure, and therefore phase and symmetry, of the metal oxides and TGA displays the change in weight the metal oxide obtains from intaking oxygen. In the context of producing clean energy, creating a metal oxide that is able to be oxidized and reduced effectively is important for generating clean energy in solar thermochemical water splitting. By comparing reduced and oxidized phases of XRD patterns and the amount of Oxygen intake from TGA, the alternative energy source is explained more thoroughly. SGC discussions about how to lower or limit carbon emissions helped with understanding why the goal was to create and alternative source. In doing so, it solidified that although combustion reactions are a great way to obtain energy, there are other ways to do so without outputting carbon. Lastly, the characterization techniques and synthesis methods I learned are crucial to the career path I am on.

During this practicum, I learned that the lab class in school and for research are two very different ordeals. Doing research under the right professor and a field that you are interested in is more fun and worthwhile than just doing a random titration on a random Tuesday for no reason. Specifically for me, I think the best part about it is the application and knowing that what you are doing could potentially help the world and therefore people is amazing. With that being said, I learned I like being in the lab or in a research setting more than I initially thought. Coming into the project, I did not have any expectations about how much I should learn, but regardless, I learned more than what I could have dreamed of. Although I feel the chemistry you learn in your first two years of college does not prepare you for such high level physics and chemical intuition, the basic foundations are still there which can help you in the more advanced concepts. From the actual research and chemistry side and through a more personal lens of graduate life and graduate school, doing this project solidified the next steps that I want to take for my career. I would love to pursue a PhD for material science or inorganic/materials chemistry. From this, I obtained an internship in working with materials for energy at the University of Utah in hope to learn more about the field that I plan to pursue.

For the most part of the practicum, the team was only Stephanie and I. There are more people in the group that would assist in making sure every piece of equipment is functional or give advice on a poster, but day to day it was just Stephanie and I. I would give Stephanie the highest rating in terms of team work. She taught me everything I know about materials chemistry and I proved to strengthen her knowledge by asking questions on the topics. As a collaborator, I was in the position of a student for them to tell their truths to me. Using this collaboration, our synthesis and poster presentation went very smoothly because of the difference in mindset. Overall this collaboration was familiar from my background in playing sports.

I would definitely recommend that students, especially Engineering or science majors, try to get into research as soon as possible and specifically for Dr. Efrain Rodriguez’s lab too. I will tell you sooner rather than later if you really like graduate life and the research you are thinking about studying.