Public Lab Research note


This is an attempt to replicate an activity.

Crystalline silica from tile grout at AS220 microscope workshop

by warren | December 02, 2018 17:58 02 Dec 17:58 | #17785 | #17785

warren was awarded the Photo Documentation Barnstar by xose for their work in this research note.


We had a really interesting time building microscopes and trying different lighting, slide preparation, and dyeing (with beet juice) and I wanted to share some of the photos we got from our different #communitymicroscope builds (see https://publiclab.org/micro for more on this kit):

This is from tile grout; not full resolution of the webcam but pretty good:

image description

Here's the micrometer for scale:

image description

Then we added a 40x microscope lens to try for better magnification; each tick mark is 10 microns, or 0.01mm:

image description

image description

Above is a nice sharp-edged piece, at ~50 microns or so.

image description

Above, some interesting grooves and darker colors in there. This is in beet juice to add contrast but maybe that was unnecessary.image description

Finally, there were a lot of these smaller very sharp shards, at ~20x5 microns, perhaps:

image descriptionimage description

And from last week's #microbrews event:

A poppy seed:

image description

I'll post more in a bit!


10 Comments

2018-12-02T18_20_46.058Z.jpg

2018-12-02T18_09_03.252Z.jpg

2018-12-02T18_18_25.487Z.jpg

2018-12-02T18_18_57.452Z.jpg

2018-12-02T18_09_33.719Z.jpg

2018-12-02T18_07_09.061Z.jpg

2018-12-02T18_05_00.348Z.jpg

2018-12-02T18_04_53.490Z.jpg

2018-12-02T18_04_51.569Z.jpg

2018-12-02T18_04_48.684Z.jpg

2018-12-02T18_00_59.800Z.jpg

2018-12-02T18_04_39.145Z.jpg

2018-12-02T18_00_50.707Z.jpg

2018-12-02T17_59_32.803Z.jpg

Reply to this comment...


2018-12-02T16_34_22.972Z.jpg

Reply to this comment...


@xose awards a barnstar to warren for their awesome contribution!

Reply to this comment...


Fantastic pictures!!! Which camera did you use?

Is this a question? Click here to post it to the Questions page.

Reply to this comment...


2018-12-02T16_25_36.559Z.jpg

2018-12-02T17_03_17.105Z.jpg

2018-12-02T17_17_20.513Z.jpg

2018-12-02T17_59_08.594Z.jpg

2018-12-02T17_56_40.596Z.jpg

2018-12-02T16_42_53.520Z.jpg

2018-12-02T17_31_06.144Z.jpg

Reply to this comment...


Mine at the top are with the hi res webcam kit, but @peasepoint's are with the basic microscope kit... a very cheap webcam!

Reply to this comment...


Awesome! Those with the spheres are impressive!

Reply to this comment...


Screen_Shot_2018-08-08_at_11.55.45_AM.png

This one from a while back!

Reply to this comment...


@warren - I would like to use a few of your silica images for a safety training introduction. This is for Michigan State University worker safety program per new OSHA rules. I would credit you in the course and the course will be behind a MSU employee secure login.

You're free to use these, they're CC-BY-SA creative commons licenses! Sorry i'm so slow to reply!


Reply to this comment...


Login to comment.