Chemistry (Titration) Research Project Day by Stephen Jaquiery

Chemistry (Titration) Research Project Day

In September Year 13 Chemistry students spent a Saturday doing the practical work for their big internal on Quantitative Analysis.

Their brief was to analyse the variation in the concentration of a substance. As always there was a wide variety of both substances and techniques, from nitrogen in soil samples collected under a gorse bush to the amount of alcohol produced by fermenting potatoes. The techniques included steam distillation, titration and gravimetric analysis.

Each group of students chose what they wanted to analyse and had to develop their own method and adapt it to the available equipment. The challenge of being totally responsible for their own practical and making it work was an amazing learning experience for all the students and they now realise that chemistry is not just about following a documented procedure but involves understanding what the reactions are and how the practical procedure affects the results.