Following the protocol provided by Dr. Hartings, the films from last Friday, August 27, 2014, were transferred from the teflon dishes into a 250 mL beaker containing 0.2 M Sodium Sulfate solution with added sulfuric acid at 80°C.
After an hour of gentle stirring (2:00PM), the films were transferred to a warmed, 1% HCl solution at 80°C.
The PVA only film was torn into pieces by the stir bar during stirring while the PVA + clay film remained intact.
At 2:35PM, the films were transferred to a room temperature, 0.2M Sodium Bicarbonate solution for 15 minutes. As mentioned, this process will neutralize the acid present on the films.
Once the 15 minute neutralization was completed, the films were stored into separate beakers containing distilled water for the meantime.
Batch 2 Film Synthesis
0.1144 g of Sodium Cloisite (Southern Clay Products) was added to 1.0068 g of PVA (MP Biomedicals); these were dissolved in 7 mL of distilled water in preparation for polymer + clay film synthesis.
PVA only film was prepared by dissolving 1.0091 g of PVA into 7 mL of distilled water.
The polymer solutions were stirred and heated at 75°C until mixture was homogeneous.
Observing no particles were left in solution, the polymer solutions were allowed to cool at room temperature. Once cooled, 0.5 mL of 0.8% glutaraldehyde was added to each polymer solution. Additional stirring was done on both solutions to ensure homogeneity.
Solutions were cast into their respected teflon dishes and left to dry under the fume hood.
Suspension of 8/27/14 Films in Malachite Green
2, 8, 80, and 200 ppm solutions of malachite green were prepared.
Empty vials were labeled, accordingly, with the prepared concentrations of the malachite green.
The polymer films temporarily stored in distilled water were transferred into separate petri dishes for cutting.
Using a falcon tube and a metal spatula, the polymer films were cut into rounds.
The pieces of polymer film were distributed to the empty vials. The mass of the vial containing films were recorded (Table 1).