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Using equation 1.3, the volume of the desired amount of beads was calculated to be 2.2e-3 mL (~2.31e-6 kg) within the whole apparatus.
Problems Encountered
Turbidity is a measurement of the concentration of light scattering at 90 degrees when a beam of light is shot to a portion of water. For light to deflect off a colloidal particle, the particle needs to be reflective.
Unfortunately, the particle beads the team purchased were found to be translucent rather than reflective. Therefore, the influent turbidity measured by the turbidimeter has come out to be much lower that what was expected. In addition, the beads seem to clump and stick to themselves, forming undesired flocs. This will change the size of the particle settling in the apparatus and alter the desired experimental data; the data the team desires is the sedimentation velocity of individual beads rather than a group of beads clumped together.