Problem solvers: part 2

I know I've said this on the blog before: science involves learning all sorts of random skills that a normal person doesn't need. As problems come up, we do whatever it takes to fix them. Here's my latest example. 

A Niskin bottle in my lab with both ends open.

There are these things called Niskin bottles that are incredibly common in oceanography. Everyone uses them. The bottle itself is made out of thick plastic (PVC), and it has water-tight caps on both ends that close when triggered. You open the bottle on the surface, let ocean water flow through it all the way down, trigger the closing mechanism at your desired depth, and then bring up a sealed, temperature-controlled sample of water from a precise location. Niskin bottles work great. 

I bought 10 Niskin bottles for our eDNA project and shipped them to Saipan for Calvin and Evan to use in the field. At the end of the trip, they packed the bottles back in the original boxes, added the padding, and sent them to me. Easy enough - except that by the time I unpacked the box back at WHOI, 6 out of the 10 bottles were broken. 

I honestly don't even know how it happened. These bottles are made from thick PVC, and the most common damage was that the handles were sheered off. What do you have to do to a box to get inch-thick plastic to break clean in half? 

Replacing the bottles wasn't an option because clogs in the global supply chain meant I would have to wait 6 months or more. Plus, insurance wasn't exactly eager to pay for the damage. My only other option was repair. 

More padding!

I started with the easy ones: the bottles that just had missing handles. In most cases, I was able to plug the small holes left in the body of the bottle with PVC glue. The seals even held in bench tests. I was pretty proud of my quick-and-dirty fix! There's one bottle I was unable to repair, because there was a chunk missing from the bottle wall. I tried putting it back in place and gluing it, but it still dripped water from the seam. 

Rest assured, I will be much more careful about shipping Niskin bottles in the future! For the next phase of the eDNA project, WHOI's shipping department surrounded each bottle with foam and put them in a hard-sided D-container. Man, I hope that works!