I've been pretty lousy with writing. Since I started work as a Researcher for the critical minerals hub in Sydney, I have been unmotivated to do writing for myself. At the moment, I am on leave for the Easter break. I took a little bit of rest and grasped some inspiration to write an article about tooth health. Check it out here:

• All stuff hydroxyapatite and tooth health

For dinner tonight, Nick made a reservation at Majits in Corrimal for 7 pm. Manjits is an Indian restaurant. It is very popular and almost everyone in the Illawarra knows of it. We often order from Manjits using Uber Eats. We have only dined here once before, in September last year.

As Majits is a BYO restaurant, we took one of our New Zealand Syrah's with us that we got from Te Mata Estate in Hawke's Bay. They charge a $5 corking fee which is silly to be honest, as we pour the wine ourselves. But it works out to be a lot cheaper than ordering wines/beers at the restaurant. I also think it's a better option for us because our wines are probably much nicer than any of the one's they serve at the restaurant.

When we arrived, the restaurant was very empty. We sat on the balcony, and there was probably 5 other tables occupied. However, considering that this restaurant is very large, it felt very empty.

Nick opened the wine to allow it to oxidise a little before we drank. The first sip was amazing! I was feeling a bit of regret that we opened this bottle tonight. My eyes watered at the amazing taste of the wine. It was so flavoursome with a full body. Even with the crazy spices of the Indian, it never overpowered the wine. Side note: looking online, these bottles are $30 NZD. However, they do not ship to Australia ☹️

As we sipped our wine and read through the menu, we were trying to remember the things that we ordered last time we were here (because they don't offer everything through Uber Eats). As I looked through my photos, I found a picture of the Samosa Chat that we ordered last year. I remember it being so delicious! Therefore, we ordered it again for an entre. On the menu, it says that the Samosa Chat comes in 2 pieces. We were tempted to get 2 but we stuck with only 1. This was a good decision as the serving was quite large. If we ordered more than one entre, it would have filled our bellies so much!

For the mains, we ordered Malai Kofta and Palak Paneer, with a side of rice and naans - Garlic for me and Chilli for Nick. The palak paneer was a must. This is the meal that I always order and the meal that I love! We were a little unsure of the Malai Kofta but once we tried it, we were in awe of the flavours and textures. It was served in a butter-like sauce, similar to their butter chicken. This was too much food though and I could not finish my naan or the Palak Paneer. Nontheless, our bellies were very satisfied!

Img caption: Our meals for the evening at Manjits

What can we do with sourdough discard? I would hate to waste my sourdough discards, which is why I have been searching for different things to do with it. Did you know that discard lasts for a few days in the fridge? This recipe uses a 2 day old discard.

So today, I wanted to make some pastry with it. Beforehand, I did a quick search and found that pastry follows the same method as a regular pastry recipe, only that it uses less flour. I used my previously developed Pastry recipe as follows:

Makes 2 sheets of pastry

Ingredients:
225 g flour
25 g butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
50-100 g of sourdough starter*

Method (pastry):

1. The butter was cut into small cubes (0.5 cmx0.5cm)
2. The butter and flour was rubbed together to make a crumbled flour
3. The oil was added and mixed in, then the flour was rubbed further
4. salts were mixed in
5. Starter was mixed in.
6. A small amount of water was added (just to make it come together)
7. Stretch and fold of the pastry several times
8. Moulded the pastry into a Dish, covered and placed in the fridge overnight.*

Filling: 1/2 brown onion
1 garlic cloves
1/4 cup cream
60 g ricotta
1/3 cup tasty cheese
200 g button mushrooms, sliced
2 handfulls of spinach
1 tsp salt 1/2 tsp pepper

9. Over medium heat, melt butter and fry onion and garlic until onion is translucent.
10. Add mushrooms and fry until they start to sweat.
11. Add spinach.
12. In a seperate bowl, combine the cheese and cream. Add the mushroom mixture and salt and pepper.
13. Pour mixture into the dish (pre-moulded with pastry)
14. Cover the top with the second layer of pastry.
15. Bake at 200 °C (fan forced) for 30 minutes.

Img caption: The rolling out of one pastry (left), the filling of the pastry in the dish (middle) and the final product (right).

Notes about this recipe: Note about the starter: This was a discard that I kept in the fridge for 2 days. I think it is safe to leave sourdough discard for 3 days in the fridge, so I wanted to use it before I needed to throw it away.

NOTE about the hydration: on the 26.06.24: before I added the starter, I added 1/2 cup of water (which I realised was a mistake therefore this recipe is tweaked). After I added the starter, it was very sticky! This was wrong, the consistency should be crumbly. Therefore, it is crucial to add the sourdough starter before extra water, so you correct the consistency.

Note for step 8: Refrigeration is important for pastry. The colder it is, the better. You want the butter and oil to solidify to bring the crumbly consistency to your pastry. I also think that it will aid in bring flavours out of the sourdough.

On 23.6.24, I used my sourdough discard for the first time. At this point it was 10 days old. Just before I was preparing to use it, I noticed that it had rose almost double its initial size. It was very gaseous and therefore, I thought it was active and ready.

The first recipe I used was the following: Makes 5 pancakes. Serving size is probably 1-2.

Ingredients: 97 g starter (discard)
112 g plain flour
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup of milk (warmed)
1/2 frozen banana
1 egg.

Method:

1. Combine dry ingredients
2. Add wet ingredients
3. Let it sit for 5 minutes (it will bubble a bit because of the sourdough discard)
4. Fry 30 sec each side.
5. Serve with butter

The pancakes were indeed very fluffy and full! I enjoyed these pancakes so much that a few days later, on 25.6.24, I made more!

The next time I made them, I changed the ingredients as follows (methods are the same):

50-100 g starter
112 g plain flour
1 scoop of protein powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup milk (warmed)
1/2 frozen banana
1 egg.

These pancakes were delicious and I ate two for lunch the following day!

Img caption: The batter (left image), pancakes cooking (middle image) and the final product (right image)

Date created: 28.05.24, Date modified: 17.06.24

Date: 28.05.24
What's new in the life of Carly? Recently I started working as a laboratory technician for ANFF (Australian National Fabrication Facility), back at the Innovation Campus in Wollongong. ANFF is a government funded organisation that is designed to support Research and Development. There are several nodes located around Australia, with several in each state. The ANFF Materials node is located here at the University of Wollongong as well as the University of Newcastle, specialising in polymers, bioinks, and electromaterials.

I have been here for 2 weeks so far. At the moment, the work is pretty slow, yet I am trying to keep busy. I have been trained on the ICP and elemental analyser and am waiting for traiing by Greg on the digestor in order to further my training on the ICP. I hope to use it a few times in order to become more familiar since I am now the official trainer for it. While I wait for things to happen here, I have continued my learning with python. In fact, today I wrote a program with the following purposes:

1. To create a new folder with the month, then a folder with the date
2. To take a file and convert it from txt to csv
3. To extract the X and Y values from the folder and normalise the Y column.
4. To create a line graph of the X and normalised Y values.
5. To export the image as a png with the date and activity as the file name.

I feel as excited about programing as I did with the synthesis of my polymers. Both of these skills have different thresholds and I think they can complement each other very nicely. I just wish I could get a mixture of lab work and desk work... As I was told today "This place is very slow, as there are many changes happening.."

In addition, I have been learning a bi¬t of LaTeX. It was a large hurdle and a little traumatic installing it, only for Nick to point out to me later on that Typst (which I am more fluent with) is open access for offline use (something I did not realise before). Therefore, I looked through the extensions of VSCode and found the typst extension, which I immediately installed. I began to create a template for my publications, which is much nicer than using microsoft word!!!! If I could do one thing over again, it would be to use typst for my thesis. I will definitely be using this to create reports in the future.

In other news, both of the examiners have returned my PhD thesis. I am yet to receive it, however, my supervisors have told me that there are mostly minor corrections (They didn't want to give me too much information, and later I learned that they are not allowed to tell me anything). I'm hoping that I can correct it soon, but I am very nervous about what it will say!

Caption: The only information I can get about my thesis at this point

Date: 13.06.24
On Friday, 7 June 2024 at 8:57 AM, I received an email from the Graduate Research School with my thesis examination. My PhD will be awarded, pending minor changes to the thesis. This is probably the best result that I could hope for.

As I read the examiners reports, I was at first shocked and overwhelmed by the reports, however, as I read on, I realised that it was very positive, with only grammatical errors and mistakes. I ended up fixing my thesis within a day.

One of my reviewers said "The number of experiments performed was really impressive, even if part of them were unsuccessful and did not lead to the desired product." The other said "In summary, this is an excellent thesis and I recommend that the candidate be awarded a PhD degree." This made me feel really good about it. While I didn't get a commended thesis, I am glad that the reviews were positive.

Date: 17.06.24
On Thursday 13 June 2024, I met with my PhD supervisors and discussed my thesis. They were happy with the changes that I made and gave me a few additional suggestions. The next day, I sent an email to the head of postgraduate studies asking if he was happy with my corrections. After consulting with my supervisors, he then sent an email to the graduate research school approving my final submission. At 10:15 am today, I submitted the final version of my thesis!!! I am proud of the work I did and while I haven't published any manuscripts (yet hopefully), I believe I added something novel to the literature.

Recently I started a position as a lab technician with Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF). One of the requirements of this position is to maintain the ICP (Fig 1). Therefore, I decided to write a short post here about ICP, which I will update with the various things that I have learned along the way.

Fig 1. The ICP in my lab at the University of Wollongong, with the labelled components

What is ICP?​

Inductively coupled plasma (ICP) mass spectrometry (MS) or optical emission spectroscopy (OES) is a method of elemental analysis which utilises a plasma source. In ICP-MS, the ions are directly measured. In contract, ICP-OES uses an optical spectrometer to measure the photons emitted as they pass through the plasma. While both methods are extremely fast to use, cheap and straightforward, the ICP-OES has a higher sensitivity to detection.

How does ICP work?​

Figure 2. Schematic of ICP: (a) engineered setup and (b) behaviour of the sample inside the sample channel. Images taken from (Hou and Jones) and (McCurdy and Potter)

A schematic of an ICP is displayed in Fig 2. The liquid sample is injected into a spray chamber which is converted to an aerosol via a nebuliser. During this process, only the very fine particles are injected into the inductor. In the inductor, the sample aerosol is further dried and vapourised due to the high temperatures (10000 K) in the sample carrier. In this process, all chemical bonds are broken, allowing for the vapourisation of each individual atom (Fig 2b). The free atoms collide with plasma, allowing them to transition to an excited state. Upon relaxation to ground state, the ions/atoms will emit a photon of characteristic energies, which can be used to determine the elemental origin of the ions. The total number of photons emitted is proportional to the concentration.

The ionisation plasma is typically argon gas as it is chemically inert and contains a high proportion of cations and electrons with a high electron density. In the set up shown in Fig 2a, radiofrequency (RF) is applied to a coil which produces “seed” electrons which are accelerated and collide with argon gas to form argon plasma and electrons:

Ar(g) → Ar⁺ + e^-

About sample preparation​

Solubilised solutions (aqueous or organic) are required to perform ICP analysis. Therefore, samples (<0.2 %>) are typically treated with nitric acid (HNO₃) or HCl, in a process referred to as "acid digestion". Sample concentrations of <0.2% are crucial to avoid any matrix effects.

Matrix effects​

Matrix effects are interferences in the analysis due ton signal dift caused by the deposition of solids on the sample apertures or signal suppression caused by salt ions. The typical salt interference is caused by oxide formation, which seems to reduce the ion flow and promotes clogging at the sample cone (the interface that analyses ion extraction). With years of research, matrix effects have typically solved through the use of OES compared to MS. ICP-OES relies on photon emission rather than ion acceleration, which makes it less susceptible to interferences.

Advantages of ICP compared to other elemental analyses​

As ICP heats to very high temperatures, samples undergo more efficient vaporisation, atomisation and excitation. This allows for a wider range of elements to be analysed by ICP. In addition, the high temperature means that there is less water vapour present, in turn reducing the concentration of oxygen species and thus a lower level of matrix interferences caused by oxide formation.

References​

1. Ammann, A.A., Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP MS): a versatile tool. Journal of Mass Spectrometry, 2007. 42(4): p. 419-427.
   
2. Hou, X. and B.T. Jones, Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry, in Encyclopedia of Analytical Chemistry. 2000, John Wiley & Sons Ltd: Chichester. p. 9468-6485.
   
3. McCurdy, E. and D. Potter, Optimising ICP-MS for the determination of trace metals in high matrix samples. Spectroscopy Europe, 2001. 13: p. 14+16-20.
   
4. Kopru, S. and M. Soylak, Inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) detection of trace metal contents of children cosmetics. Optical and Quantum Electronics, 2024. 56(3): p. 399.

It's been just over a month since I've wrote something in my blog.

For the last month and a half, I have been working through the comments that I received back. It's been a real tough time, because there were a lot of comments. I honestly felt like everything I knew about my topic was wrong. I have been reading so much and redoing all my figures/analyses. Each day, I started work at 7 am and continued until 10 pm. I even spent all my weekends working on it. Until finally, I felt proud of my thesis! Now, it is being reviewed by one of my supervisors.

The plan now is to write a couple of research papers. However, my current dilemma is that I dont want to write a paper if my supervisors do not agree with what I wrote in my thesis.

Over the weekend, Nick and I headed to the Hunter Valley for a wedding. It was great to get away, and now I am feeling fresh to resume writing.

• As it stands, I have completed writing my PhD thesis. Below is a table summary of the chapters, with type of chapter, number of words (in total, incl. references, and figures) and number of pages
• I still have a few more experiments to conduct for Research Chapter 5 and 7.
• I still need to write up the supporting information (which will be a lot)
• I still need to write papers.
• I plan to complete my thesis and send by Friday 27 Oct.

Table Summary of my PhD thesis:​

A few updates include:

• Tips for writing in PhD section
• Recap of patrol in Life section / Surf Lifesaving
• Pros and cons for starting a PhD in PhD section
• Added Rock Salt, Menai to Life section / Food and drink / Restaurants and bars
• Added Trips to the Hunter Valley to Life section / Trips