This is a blog created by Ms Luminati (science teacher), Ms Mathis (English teacher) and Ms Burguière (science teacher) for the students of lycée expérimental André Malraux (Biarritz, France) who are learning science in English. They want to show that science is fun, interesting and easy particularly when it is done in English!
This year we hope to work again with some fine European partners.
Let us all have fun together!
For this year our project is about soap. The key question is find a soap with the best respect of the skin. To find it, we made a cold soap, a hot soap, surgras soap, and a lot of soap.the pH need to be at 7 for a good soap for skin.
We have seen a Youtube video. This video explains to us how can we use our smartphone as a microscope. This video is on the channel Tunisie Magazine, this video is titled "Comment transformer votre smartphone en microscope".
You can see our homemade microscope, on the top the phone is used to see some objects and on the bottom the phone is used as a light.
Under the phone used to see something there are different lenses with different magnifications.
We have done this projects with Yohan Guillemet, Nicolas Accaries and Antoine Leveque.
Our project consists of creating some crystals and specially make them pure.For that, we did some liquid and solid crystals, and every time we get geometric shaped crystals.
We changed factors to see if it had an influence on the crystal's purity. First we changed the solubility, by putting more or less metals in distilled water : We conclude that ours crystals were more pure with a solution at solubility stage because the solution is saturated at this point. Then, we changed temperature, it's at 0 degrees that we obtained the most beautiful, translucent, geometric and pure crystal.
Ours crystals are very small so we observed them into the microscope, so we had the idea of make them grow. So we did.
In order to conclude, in our project we are looking for the best qualities of crystals.
Our project is about colorants. We wanted to do this project because we were wondering about uses of colorants and their dangers. We have done some synthesis, a lot of extraction (as like the extraction of M&M's). There you can see a photo about this experiment.
In this experiment, we wanted to show all colorants contained in the M&M's, identify these colorants and know more about the dangers of those colorants.
The problematic of our project is "What does colorants are used for and when can they be dangerous".
With this problematic in head, we have done an extraction of lycopene in the tomato sauce.
We have found that the lycopene in the tomato sauce could be dangerous for health but we must eat a enormous quantity to be sick.
Our project have done many extraction (in schtroumpfs...)
and we wanted to show you a video about dangers of Food Dyes. (the link of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=611hJOb4M0g)
Our project consist to improve the paracetamol synthesis. In fact, we want to improve the yield of the synthesis,while respecting principles of the green chemistry.
Why did we choose to do this project ?
We wanted to work on it because it's one of the pharmaceuticals the most sold in the world : it was interesting to try to improve it synthesis.
In what consist the reaction ?
We make react para-aminophenolwith acetic anhydride to produce paracetamol and acetic acid
The acetic acid is filtered at the end of the synthesis
How did we try to improve it ?
We had to change the reagent's moles to have the best yield possible :
We've first did a synthesis with anhydride acetic in default : the yield was about 17 %
The second one was a synthesis with para-aminophenol in default : the yield was about 50%
And the last experiment was a synthesis with both equals : the yield was about 72%
the yield went from 17% to 72%
Our paracetamol :
On the other hand, we had to replace a reagent by another : replace acetic anhydride by acetyl chloride.
We met few problems with this one : it can't be in contact with water. So the para-aminophenol can't be dissolved in it.
Then, we tried to dissolve it in another solvant, the DMSO, because it's a polar molecule, as the para-aminophenol. (We dissolve a polar molecule in a polar solvant).
But the DMSO also react with the acetyl chloride, and may make another product that is called : Swern reagent.
Then we conclued that we can't improve the paracetamol synthesis if it's not by changing reagent's moles with our knowledge.
What kind of problems have we met ?
We had a lot of problems by making paracetamol : in fact, the reagents we use are very dangerous :
some of them have toxic fumes, can be corrosive, or can explode by a contact with water !
Then, we had to be careful while carrying out the experiments, and wear lab gloves, lab glasses and a lab coat.
Our project consists of improving the chemiluminescence.
Chemiluminescence produces a light ( it is mesured in lux ) but no heat. Our goal, is to use the chemiluminescence like a light source in the home or in the car headlights.
To do this, we need to mix three reagents :
- luminol
- hydrogene peroxide
-potassium ferricyanide
Here is a video of our experiments :
To do this experiments we need to wear lab coat, goggles and gloves, even if the reaction is not really dangerous.
At the beginning of our project we made gas with the electrolysis of water to get familiar with the operation of the fuel cell. Then we made some cells to compare them with the fuel cell. We made a small bike engine. This engine can not run on a bike because it's not powerful enough.
Our project is about the Laser Harp : our goal is to play music with lasers.
First, we wanted to transmit a sound from the laser, to the photodiode and finally to the speaker.
Then, we wanted to transmit music thanks to a mobile phone. We only had to plug it into the laser ; and we could hear the music which was emitted by the speaker.
Finally, we introduced the "Arduino chip" ; a programming chip. Thanks to it, we will be able to play differents tones.
