About Me:

Hi, I’m Jay! I teach general chemistry at South High Community School in Worcester. I became a teacher after studying at Quinisgamond Community College and Worcester State University. I got into science through a desire to gain a better understanding of how the body works and how to live a healthy life, following a family member’s experience with cancer. In my studies and experiences, I have come to appreciate chemistry as a discipline for putting language and structure to the complex processes that drive life and compose the world around us. I began my path towards becoming an educator when I figured out that the most effective way for me to learn was to practice communicating my knowledge to others. As I have become a better communicator, I get excited to share what I find interesting and essential with others, and I have expanded my practice to find out what others want or need to learn. Outside of work, I enjoy a multitude of hobbies including hiking, gardening, playing music, cooking, and making art.

I joined RET to develop the research skills I began learning in my undergraduate experience, as well as to bring what I learn back to my classroom. A frequently asked question in my classroom is “why do I need to learn about this?”, and this program is a fabulous opportunity to access resources and experience I need to help demonstrate why learning chemistry is both essential and amazing.

About the Lab:

I am working in the Dynamics Lab led by Dr. Andrew Teixeira this summer. The lab is concerned with multiple applications of chemical engineering, and the project I’m working on intends to address specific bottlenecks in the use of Hydrothermal Liquefaction (HTL) to create biocrude from solid municipal waste (MSW) to be used as a sustainable fuel source. Challenges to the goal of biofuel as a feasible sustainable fuel include working around the degradation of stored waste, conversion-readiness of waste, PFAS contamination, and the efficiency of converting waste to biocrude. My contribution to the project involves the conversion-readiness and efficiency of the conversion to biofuel. I will perform a time study on biocrude formed through hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of dehydrated food waste to determine the reaction time that produces the highest biocrude yield.

Project Title: Biocrude Al Dente: Determining Optimal Hold Time for Hydrothermal Liquefaction (HTL) of Food Waste

Weekly Updates:

• Week 1:

I attended orientation, reported to the lab and began training on the HTL process. I read scholarly literature about hydrothermal liquefaction, developed my research proposal, and attended lab meetings. After training on the HTL process, the data I gathered was comparable to the data of previous runs. It was decided at a lab meeting that I would run a study on the effect of reaction time on oil yield at 300C to determine the optimal run time for HTL of food waste while waiting for sample materials for the preconditioning study.

• Week 2:

I ran out of ball-milled food waste to use, so Dr. Tompsett showed me how to use the ball-milling machine to prepare more food waste material for my experiment. After a few cycles, one of the machine parts broke so it’s undergoing repair. Fortunately, I made enough to use for a week or two. Getting the technique down to vacuum-filter the biocrude phases has been tedious, but I am now familiar with the procedure and excited to collect more data as my technique improves. I read a paper about the reactions that various macromolecules in feedstock undergo during HTL which presented the complexity of this process in great detail. We also had our first professional development session where we were exposed to an example of a project-based learning experience, which has sparked some ideas for a future lesson where students might be tasked with determining some potential uses for the food waste produced at school.

• Week 3:

This week, I continued refining my vacuum filtration technique in the lab, collected some more data that will inform my study on reaction time, and gave a short presentation on impostor syndrome at our weekly lab group meeting. It’s a condition where a person feels like a fraud among their colleagues or peers, that they are fooling others into thinking that they belong. It’s especially prevalent among women, as well as anyone belonging to an ethnic, racial, or religious minority group. It felt like a relevant topic to bring to this “safety spot” part of our meeting since it also tends to affect college students. Discussion revealed that this was a common experience for most people at the meeting, and that it is not something that necessarily goes away. However, some common strategies used to combat the stress, anxiety, depression, and loneliness that characterize imposter syndrome included being open with others, recognizing your achievements for what they are, and accepting compliments and praise from others. In college, you’re surrounded by folks who are there to learn, to make some kind of difference in their life or in the world, and being there takes grit and dedication. There’s pressure to meet the expectations of your professors and classes, temptation to compare yourself to your peers, and it can feel shameful if it feels like you aren’t measuring up. It’s a dance of figuring out what improvements need to be made, where you excel, what is enough, and how to balance work and life.

Back in the lab, the time-study data I have collected warrants some further analysis. I ran some samples for 0 minutes and 10 minutes. My initial hypothesis is that oil yield should peak between 20 and 40 minutes, so I anticipated seeing that yield would be lower at 0 minutes than 10. Looking at mass alone, the yield at 0 minutes is higher–strange! I did notice some condensation in the flask containing the oil, though, so there’s a good chance that water is adding to the “oil” mass in my calculation. I’ll need to do a moisture and total carbon analysis on these samples and adjust the mass balance calculations in order to see the true oil yield.

• Week 4:

This week, I collected data for 4 of the runs needed in the time study. I was still noticing condensation in the flask containing oil after separating it, so I’ll be performing moisture analysis next week once I get trained on it. I also gave a presentation in our lab group meeting, where I shared the data I’ve collected so far as well as preliminary ideas for the lesson I’m putting together. After some collaborative time during PD on Wednesday, my lesson will most likely involve students rearranging the atoms in a model of a carbohydrate, protein, and lipid to see how many fuel molecules can be made from each. They can also determine the energy of the molecules they create to see which type of molecule might make for the best feedstock for biofuels. There’s still more to figure out for this lesson, but I’m excited to see what the final product will look like.

• Week 5:

Tragedy struck in the lab when I bumped the sample fridge and my sample flask fell and spilled. Thankfully, nobody was hurt and the volume ended up being very small. But it took about 5 hours to get to that phase (acetone and bio oil) and I hate to break glassware. Accidents happen, though, and we move on with more care in the future. I started analyzing moisture with Karl Fischer titrations this week. This analytical method uses a basic reaction involving iodine and sulfur dioxide reacting with the water in the sample. The instrument detects a change in voltage as the reaction with the sample proceeds, and it uses this information to calculate the % water of the sample. The preliminary results for a few of my previous oil samples support that there was significant moisture in some of them (~10%). I’m excited for the fuller picture once I wrap up the re-run for the lost sample and the remaining moisture analyses.

• Week 6:

Hard to believe 6 weeks went by so fast! This week, we finished our final posters and prepped for the session on Friday. I spent way more time that I thought just on formatting the poster– Powerpoint is so finicky! This week, I’ll be fleshing out some more details for my lesson plan. I think it will wind up looking more like a unit plan with all of the ideas I have for it. So far, the idea is that students will come up with solutions for wasted food at South High and use what they learn about how food waste can undergo change to communicate their proposed solution to school administration or the school committee.

Our Final Poster: