Chemists Enjoy Trips To Bristol University

This week the Chemistry Department was lucky enough to run two amazing trips to Bristol University.

On Tuesday, the 4^th Form pupils all travelled in the scorching heat to Bristol University for a Polymer Circus. After having a brief safety talk and an introduction to life in the laboratories, pupils spent the morning making slime, preparing benzoic acid from sodium benzoate using an acid substitution reaction, making a polymer from milk called casein, investigating the different properties of polymorph and successfully performing the nylon rope trick. In the afternoon the pupils attended a lecture delivered by Thomas Farrugia, a Maltese postgraduate student, on his PhD project which involved fabricating and testing thin, enzymatically active films composed of proteins that have had polymers electrostatically grafted onto them. Then pupils watched a lecture demonstration involving visually impressive reactions and explosions.

On Friday, the L6^th Form chemists attended a Synthesis Day at Bristol University. In the morning the pupils completed the extraction of caffeine from tea bags. This provided the pupils with an additional opportunity to complete an alternative practical to fulfil their A Level practical endorsement requirements. Pupils used vacuum filtration, followed by using a separation funnel to separate the organic layer (containing the caffeine) from the aqueous layer, dried the organic layer over a drying agent and used a rotary evaporator to remove the solvent to attain a pure sample of solid caffeine. Finally pupils ran their own Infra-Red spectrum of their caffeine sample to confirm that they had indeed extracted caffeine and to see how pure their sample was. During the afternoon pupils attended a lecture, delivered by Sarah Michel a first year PhD student, entitled Sweet Polymers as State-of-the Art Wound Healing Agents.

Both trips were incredibly valuable for enriching the curriculum. An album of photois from the trips can be viewed below.

Sadie Osborne - Head of Chemistry