Our most valuable resource S2-E8

Tell me and I will forget, 

Teach me and I will remember,

Involve me and I will learn.

-Benjamin Franklin

A valuable learning experience

I absolutely love being on a college campus. I have learned how valuable it is to be surrounded by experts in a wide variety of fields who are passionate about their craft and eager to help those that are curious. I had used lye to extract tannic acid from acorn shells, I got this advice from Dr. Marshall while talking about my acorns at the STEM mixer. This process was the best by far, in one or two water and lye washes all of the tannic acid was extracted. Unfortunately, when trying to boil the water off from the solution like I had done in the future the solution would boil over quickly and violently. Out of frustration I took some of the solution over to the Chemistry department and I received help multiple times from the staff. At first I just wanted the solution to boil over but after some brief questioning as to what I was doing I received an entire process for extracting and isolating tannic acid. 

Tannic Acid Recipe

1. Weight out all of your acorn shells
2. Use a weaker base like baking soda to extract the tannic acid, lye works great but it will draw out all of the other polyphenols.
3. Take Hydrochloric Acid and bring the pH of the solution down to either a 6 or a 7, depending on how acidic one wants it. 
4. Use either Isopropyl or Ethyl Alcohol to precipitate the tannic acid out of the water. 
5. Boil off the alcohol.

This was an extremely easy to follow recipe and the results are in. I am so grateful to have access to teachers like these all across campus. I appreciate anyone who is an expert in their field who has taken the time to help me especially those in the chemistry department. They took a problem that I had no solution to and with a short chat were able to give me all I needed and more! They even explained to me what molar mass was, maybe I should take a chemistry class in the future. Getting help from them made me realize the best mind set in doing any problem solving is, "I don't know but let me find out." 

And before I go here is what the final product looks like.