Let it be known:

that I solved the great "Acetate Mystery" at work.

edited to add:
Camelia (Ph.D student) has been racking her brain trying to figure out where 70g of Acetate came from in her soil (for her research) that was dug up off of rt 25 in the basin where we have monitoring wells. They use an alternate decing agent there that is safer for the cranberry bogs, called CMA (calcium magnesium acetate) they haven't use any yet this season so there shouldn't be any in the soil. She also rinses it here at the lab. She needs that soil specifically because of the bacteria that is found there.
So for the past 2 weeks she's been testing any and everything and running soil samples to see where it's coming from. On friday we put the soil in the oven to bake it-to make sure it is dry.. we set it up to see if the shiny side of the foil had an effect different to the dull side. Today she says that the Acetate is coming from something to do with the baking, and the data from shiny vs. dull foil was the same.. hmm.. so I suggested that perhaps there is ambient acetate in the oven.. perhaps it got spilled or something.
We check the oven. Lo and behold! there is a dish of Acetate sitting in the oven drying. For it needs to be totally dry to make a standard. The oven has been cleaned, and now a test bake is in progress to see if there is any ambient evaporated acetate still in the oven.

I requested a full acknowledgement at the end of the dissertation. lol