• Question: what would your next science experiment be?

    Asked by Sopha to Andrew, Jade, Jessica, Kevin, Lynn on 17 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Jess Wade

      Jess Wade answered on 17 Jun 2015:

      Hey Sopha,

      Next week I’m making some solar panels with some new chemixals. To make a solar panel you mix together two materials, one to capture the sun’s light and one to make the electronic charges in a circuit and power our homes. We’re trying some different chemicals to see what happens to the solar panels, and try and make them better. If we can make the chemicals arrange in the best way possible then hopefully we can make solar panels good enough to sell.

      Jess 🙂

    • Photo: Kevin Honeychurch

      Kevin Honeychurch answered on 18 Jun 2015:

      This week I will be measuring nicotine in ‘third hand smoke’ using high performance liquid chromatography. This is with my M.Sc. student. I am also using infrared spectroscopy to look for phthalate esters in the pictures printed on t-shirts. I am doing that with a student funded by the Royal Society of Chemistry. Phthalate are poisons which can give you cancer and effect babies. Over night I will be running some experiments on extracting artificial sweeteners in chewing gum(!).

    • Photo: Jade Owen

      Jade Owen answered on 18 Jun 2015:

      I will be looking at some medicines and comparing them to European pharmacopoeia colour standards to see what colour the medicines are.

Comments