My trip to Harwell

The past two weeks were quite busy. After I came back from my holidays I decided to finish analysis of April’s beamtime data. I really wanted to make a presentation for my supervisor to confirm that I am doing the right things. I struggled a lot whit this data, as this is my first ever analysis of 3D images and I never used the required software. Also, I got an office space neighbor. So far I had the whole office for myself (it’s for 2 people), but one day I noticed a note on a desk with someone’s name. The name sounded quite familiar, so I as usual googled that person and to my surprise I found out that this is a girl who was doing MSc in the same department as me. So we basically know each other. She will be also doing a PhD in the biomaterials group. By the end of a week I managed to get quite a lot done, but not everything, as I still have work to do this week.

The whole of last week I spend at Harwell, trying to make some fibres. It was quite a mess. Well, I did find a lot of conditions where we have beads produced, but I still couldn’t eliminate it completely. Solution that I have prepared on Monday was quite viscous (I believe some has evaporated during the preparation process). So we did get nice fibres. The day after a new solution has completely evaporated, so I couldn’t spin anything. On Wednesday I made sure that there will be no evaporation so on Thursday the solution was very liquidy, thus the conditions that I decided were ideal were not good anymore. I played with conditions again and still no luck. I did test few other things on Friday, basically trying to make it more viscous and I did get some nice fibres, but the beads were still present, not a lot but they were there. I was concerned as I was planning to do degradation studies and cell work on them, and I thought that this might affect the results. I discussed it with my supervisor and it seems that I will do it anyway. This week I will try to find a furnace with an exhaust in Manchester and if I success I will be able to spin fibres locally.

On a positive note, I loved the place where I stayed during my trip. I mentioned before that the hotel was booked, so I stayed through Air B&B. The house, hosts and their dogs were sooo amazing. I highly recommend anyone going to Harwell to stay with Julia. Each day I would be looking forward to come to the house and relax with their dogs. They had a Labrador and a Newfoundland – the biggest dog I have ever seen, but she was adorable. I really miss them and I will be definitely staying with them next time I go to Harwell.

This week I will attend Additive manufacturing symposium and will have a bunch of meeting plus the cell work. So I will update you in a week. :)