Freeport High School science students have taken their intensive research of aluminum corrosion to a higher level by employing the use of a very powerful and advanced scientific instrument located at The Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island. The five students working on the project interacted with laboratory technicians at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) via webcam from Freeport High School. They remotely guided the lab workers through the viewing of the results, discussed details of the photo images from the experiment, and asked pertinent questions about the resulting data. Freeport is the first district in Nassau County to be awarded beam time using both x-rays and infrared imaging the NSLS.
"We're investigating the corrosion of aluminum using the National Synchrotron Light Source so that we can attempt to answer the fundamental questions regarding aluminum corrosion that have defeated chemists for many years," noted District Coordinator for Science Dr. Vincent Pereira. The five students involved in the project are Emerick Martin, Justin Millan, Sarah Ann King, Lauren Workman, and Wilsa "Abby" Albert. Ms. Albert, the team leader of the research, added, "They use infrared microscopes and x-rays to look at [the corrosion], things that aren't accessible to high school students. This gives us the ability to collect that much more data." The students took advantage of two separate online visits to advance their research.
The cost of building the NSLS and its related facilities totals over $1 billion. For the past 25 years, the NSLS has been the exclusive domain of scientists. During the past decade, two Nobel Prizes in chemistry have been awarded to scientists that have used the NSLS at Brookhaven.