The Chemical Oceanography Laboratory is a 840 square foot laboratory overlooking Monterey Bay. If the chemical oceanography community were to host a contest for the lab with the best view, we are confident we would win! We get to spot passing whales and check the surf at nearby Moss Landing beach while running samples or processing data in the lab.
Our lab is a general purpose chemical laboratory equipped with all the necessary instrumentation to perform standard chemical work (milliQ system, analytical scale, pH meter, etc..). We also work in MLML’s trace metal clean lab, a HEPA filtered trace metal clean environment, which we use for our trace metal clean work.
Some of the instruments available for teaching and research in the lab are shown below.
SRI 8610C Gas Chromatograph furnished with a purge and trap system and DELCD and ECD detector. This instrument is designed to analyze halogenated gases in seawater. It can also be used to determine nitrous oxide and pesticides such as DDT.
Programmable Flow Injection analyzer (mini-SIA), which is being used for measuring nutrients (phosphate, silicate, nitrate) and metals (aluminum).
We assemble our own custom Flow Injection Analyzers to analyze some trace metals (Fe, Al, Cu...) in seawater. FIA systems are also well suited for shipboard work and exploratory method development. We currently have a custom built FIA system for sub-nanomolar Fe determinations in seawater via luminol chemiluminescence detection.
Autotitrator (Methohm 916 Ti Touch with 800 Dosino) equipped with a Pt ring electrode and a pH electrode. We use this system to perform Winkler titrations (DO) and open-cell alkalinity titrations.
YSI EXO1 multiparameter water quality sonde with depth, conductivity, temperature, dissolved oxygen optode, pH and turbidity sensors. Our workhorse to measure master variables when we venture in the Elkhorn Slough and environs.
Lab-On-Chip phosphate sensor (Clearwater Sensors, UK). This unit which Max helped develop at the University of Southampton provides hourly phosphate data at the CeNCOOS Moss Landing Shore station.
