Profile

I finished my Chemistry degree at the University of Bath in 2019 and now I’m in my first year of my Chemistry degree there. I live in Bath with 6 other students (it’s a very busy house!).  I love to sing and am in the University choir and I play korfball. I own a LOT of houseplants. My pronouns are she/her.

I am looking into how polymers from plants (polysaccharides) can be used instead of polymers from oil. We use polymers in laundry liquid or shampoo to make it the right thickness. I think we can stop using oil and use plants instead! To do this I need to understand how the plant polymers interact with other things in laundry liquid, but I’m not able to see what they’re doing. I use a method called SAXS to understand what’s happening; I fire X-rays at polymers and collect a pattern and see what the polymer is doing! In the picture you can see the machine I use for my X-ray experiments.

Every morning when I get to work I have to turn on my rheometer and SAXS machine to warm them up. I have a cup of tea while I check my emails. I then prepare samples (or find the samples I prepared yesterday). These samples are a polysaccharide mixed with another ingredient like detergent. I measure the viscosity (or thickness) of the sample to see how they affect each other when they’re mixed. Then I try to “look” at the structure of the molecules using small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS). I collect all my results and spend some time analysing, then all I have to do is prepare some samples for the next day and go home! I often also meet with my supervisors to chat about work.