Epsom College chemists take up the challenge

28 Apr 2016

A College team of three L6th students took part on Tuesday this week in the South East Regional Heat of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Schools’ Analyst Competition.

The three students, John Lee, Omar Zakieh and Fraser Price, thoroughly enjoyed the challenge as one of 20 schools involved in the competition held at Kingston University.

The day consisted of three practical tasks, which were completed over four hours in the labs and involved finding out the percentage of iron in vitamin tablets by titration, using Beer-Lambert’s Law to calculate absorption coefficients and concentrations, and gas chromatography to calculate the percentage of ethanol in an alcoholic drink.

At the end of the competition, the students were given a tour of the analytical machines housed within the Kingston University Chemistry Department, with demonstrations of how the mass spectrometer and NMR spectrometers work by academic staff.