The time has come for the Royal Society of Chemistry Schools’ Analyst Competition 2024! Every year we run this challenge set by Northumbria University in partnership with the Royal Society of Chemistry.
30 Chemistry Students (10 teams of 3) were enthusiastic participants in the competition. They were taking on the role of trading standards officers and so had to check out some unusual products from ‘Super Sugar Candy Store’ who were suspected of selling sweets that contained restricted ingredients. The teams analysed the sweets using chromatography and compared the sweet dyes with known restricted or banned food dyes. The “trading standards officers” also did a spot check on some Vitamin C tablets to check on manufacturer claims of the amount of Vitamin C present – this involved lots of titrations! Trading Standards Officers deal with and investigate complaints too – in this case a cake mix where the cake did not look like the one on the packet – so analysis was done to check the amount of baking soda present in the cake mix.
This was a challenging and tiring day for the teams as they had up to 6 hours to complete the tasks, analyse and then submit their results.
Students are now eagerly waiting to find out how they have done. The winning team from the college will receive certificates and will be entered into the second round against other winning teams from the region to find out who will be crowned the regional champions. We will find out after the 14th June who the top QE teams are.
Teacher of Chemistry, Julia Magnall comments ‘We were thrilled with our students’ enthusiasm and interest in chemistry and the fabulous teamwork they demonstrated during all of these tasks – there was a really good, purposeful atmosphere throughout’.
