Ever wondered how Fruit Bursts get their flavour?

Recently, thirty enthusiastic chemistry students got to experience a lab session typical of a first-year university chemistry course at VUW! The students refined their practical skills by making fruit esters (the chemicals that make lollies smell/taste like fruits!) We used round-bottomed flasks, condensers, magnetic stirrers, hot sand, and ice baths to react acids with alcohols. To test our desired products, we put drops of solution in an infrared spectroscope then analysed the resulting graph. The lab was abundant with the sound of tinkling glass beakers, roaring fumehoods, and the smell of orange, cherry, feijoa, and wintergreen.