TSP's Journey through PhD Chemistry as a Bulldog

N.B: Important Gift for you at the end. So, slowly read and digest. Recently, I read a news article titled "Warmer Water, Less Nutrition" written by Sonia Fernandez. The summary of it is that t he nutritional value of giant kelp decreases with the rise in sea temperature. Being a scientist, I decided to learn more about the giant kelp and thought it would be nice to share some of the things I have learned. Remember that I do a course in Environmental Toxicology, and subjects as this are becoming more and more interesting. Giant Kelp : TSP, please I need a freezer here. It's so hot and I can't feed the world Well, you might think this is the first time you have been acquainted with the name "giant kelp", but if you are familiar with aquatic organisms, you might have been acquainted with organisms such as the algae.  Back in freshman biology class, I would get fascinated with botanical and zoological names of organisms and often looked forward to letting some...

This week I read an article titled " NIR II Light-Response Au Nanoframes: Amplification of a Pressure- and Temperature-Sensing Strategy for Portable Detection and Photothermal Therapy of Cancer Cells".  (A) Schematic Illustration of the Synthesis of Au NFs and (B) Schematic Diagram of the Construction of the Pressure-Based and Temperature-Based Detection Platforms In the paper, the authors were trying to make portable device with increased sensitivity and detectability for cancerous cells, as this would foster early diagnosis and swift prognosis (Perfézou et al., 2012, Chinen et al., 2015). Although previous methods have been used of late including those associated with electrochemical (Cao et al., 2019), fluorescent (Li et al., 2018), microfluidic (Tavakoli et al., 2019), and colorimetric (Hong et al., 2016) measurements. The limitations according to the authors include but are not limited to high cost and difficulty in operation. The authors synthesized folic acid-conjugate...

In today's post, I would be sharing some key points about Biochar (The points, except the 9th one, are excerpts from the book: Biochar Production, Characterization, and Applications edited by Yong Sik Ok, Sophie M. Uchimiya, Scott X. Chang, and Nanthi Bolan).  My post is coming in late because I have been immensely occupied with a few things of late. I took my second Environmental Toxicology exam on Friday. Grappled with some Profession Chemistry assignment to be finally turned in on Monday night, and few personal projects I do not want to bore you with, here.  Remember, all posts here have to be in relation to my academic and research experience in grad school. Already, I am done with the Report Writing for Professional Chemistry task, what is left is the insertion and alignment of in-text citations and references. It is about a thousand words. I know you would like to read it, and trust me, I shall share it here in about a fortnight. I need to submit it for grading first, s...

 In my country Nigeria, ''expo" is the slang for examination malpractice. When a person gets an examination question verbatim and in correct sequence before hand, or to engage in an open-book practice as against examination rules. Yes, it means so, but this is not what I am alluding to, and it's contrary to what the subject of this post refers. For your information, it occurs to me that the word ''expo" has various meaning in some (or many) countries of the world. Nigeria has a lot of slangs, and most high school students, particularly public high school students, have a lot of them in their head. Most of the slangs are often used in pidgin English, a popular parlance in my country of over 500 languages and 250 ethnic groups. The pidgin English unites us more than the British English (N.B: the British colonized us). To know more about 100 and something slangs used in public high schools in Nigeria, see this page . This morning, after attending Environment...

For me, determining the pH point of zero charge (pHpzc) seems to be the hardest part of all experiments involving Biochar synthesis. As simple as the procedure is on paper, it is time-consuming in action, particularly if you have several analytes to immobilize in soil and aqueous media. Illustrating Point of Zero Charge As a reminder, my project for the semester centers on using Rice Husk Biochar (RHB) as well as its treatment (with Steam + inorganic phosphate, and with Calcium chloride + inorganic phosphate) for immobilizing the heavy metal matrix (Cd, Pb, and As). I am trying to understand the efficiency of untreated biochar (UB) in comparison with the treated versions (BA and BB), in addition to comparing the efficiency of the two treated versions. Results from this will ideate the scientific community on how much unit metal is adsorbed from a polluted, infertile soil, with respect to a certain pH value. Do not forget that the presence of phosphorus in water leading to algal blooms,...