After finishing my master thesis using the plankton samples that were taken for P³ in 2016 it is finally time to go back to the lab and continue research. This time, my task is to optimize an analytical method for sediment analysis. A challenging task, since sediments contain minerals and dead organic matter among other substances. These render the extract, that we use for the analysis, not easily usable. We have to apply different clean-up steps to remove this non-target substances.
While one might think that science has an answer and an approach to everything this is not the case..... The approach to find the best method is trial and error. So, i am trying different ways of cleaning and until finding best one, it is a long and boring process..... As science is demanding, the chosen approach needs to be the best compromise between good recovery of analytes and an effort as little as possible. At the moment I think, that I am almost done. But on the other hand… I have been saying this for the past three weeks, so it may actually take a little more time than anticipated – as always in science.
