As an environmental or physical geography student, some of your research will involve wet lab techniques which are vital to gathering environmental data and processing lots of field data. Understanding the capabilities of lab equipment will expand your horizons of new types of research questions to brainstorm. Familiarizing yourself with these pieces of equipment will make you more confident in the lab, knowledgeable about different research techniques for your coursework and dissertation, and an asset to any academic research positions or environmental impact assessment jobs.
Here are some the pieces of lab equipment you might find in your uni’s lab and what kind of research you can conduct with them:
XRF
- This piece of equipment utilizes x-rays to read the atomic signature of elements in your sample and provide the user with their measures. It can be used in the lab or in the field for positive material identification
- Used for: heavy metal content, pollution monitoring, soil quality testing, environmental impact assessments
Microbiological Incubator
- Incubators act as a tool for cultivating bacteria cultures and colonies. Bacteria samples can be taken from a swab of the study material applied to a petri dish of an agar jelly solution. The incubator then provides the ideal warm and dark environment that the bacteria thrive in. The researcher can then identify and count the grown colonies.
- Used for: water quality testing, bioremediation, identifying agricultural diseases
Spectrophotometer
- This equipment simply measures the amount of light that can pass through the sample solution. There are two different types: one that measures UV to visible light and one that measures infrared radiation. These measurements can be used as a proxy for a multitude of identification and quality checks. These include turbidity, pH, nitrates, phosphorus, and more.
- Used for: water quality assessments, pollution identification, assessing eutrophication
Microscope
- Microscopes are a staple of any lab and can be used to enhance the image of the sample on the microscope slide.
- Used for: identifying small pollutants, pollen counts, identifying microbes
Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS)
- ICP-MS passes electromagnetic currents through a plasma to ionize the sample and break it down into its simplest atoms. This allows elements to be detected in extremely small amounts.
- Used for: environmental risk assessments, heavy and toxic metal content, analyzing industrial waste
Ion Chromatography
- This machine separates any polarized molecules by using their atoms’ charges’ attraction to either poles of an ion exchanger. This is useful for identifying elements in liquid samples.
- Used for: water quality testing, nutrient identification, measuring pollution levels from point sources, identifying eutrophication
Carbon Analyzer
- This analyzer combusts samples in the presences of excess oxygen and uses infrared detection to measure the amount of CO2 released. It is important to note that samples are destroyed in this process and cannot be retrieved.
- Used for: carbon sequestration count, water quality testing, assessing effectiveness of carbon sinks
