Manchester Survivor

Excess of Manchester & Molten steel

I'm getting those bad habits of shooting pictures of my food (like in someone's blog), but come on, look at that! :-p

After happily waiting for my supervisor to correct my 1st year report, I happily bonded it (by the way, my surname was spelled incorrectly in the back of the volumes and now I'm officially Mr. HENANDEZ), then happily submited the two copies... and now I'm desperately waiting for the fu#$"%ng date for the oral examination.

Since dear Estuardo is in a conference at a remote country (I've been told it's even farther than the Phillipines--) and he will not be back til next Thursday, once more I can't make any plans as long as I don't know the date for the exam.

Anyway, I kept on with my expriments:
I had to heat up my sample to 1200°C in order to vitrify my zeolites (all the people remaining in Manchester know this already as I've told it to death) but the porceain containers used in this kind of furnaces don't resist such temperature, so I felt quite brilliant and used a thick piece of stainless steel, which in theory would melt at 1400°. I happily placed my sample in the furnace, and the next day I found a beautifully melted piece of metal that just crumbled in my fingers. What's worse, the furnace (which is the only one in the faculty reaching those temperatures) was not working anymore.

After the shame of telling Estuardo about the incident (the stainless steel was actually part of a reactor container worth around ₤1000) we went back to the lab with the nice but almost-never-available Bob, who saw the furnace with concern.

B: The fault alarm is on and the heater just wont respond... what did you do to it?
O: Uhhh--
E: Don't answer to that!!!

Well, in the end Bob found out that the overheating alarm of the furnace was not working from the begining, so we can only guess how hot it got inside. In fact I should be mad at them for spoiling my samples!!

After (not so happily) waiting for the furnace to be repaired, finally I'll be able to repeat the experiment this Monday. Erick, the crystal blower, made some really nice silica containers for me, which in theory should resist the temperature. Hopefully I'll have enough material for a decent publication after this.

At leat I'm glad cos in 2 weeks time I'll be visiting (again) my properties at Lyme Park. You know, I have to make sure that the servants keep the place neat and don't steal the silver and china.

Silla!

posted by Oscarito @ 12:46 PM