We’re delighted to announce that Clara (Year 13) has won the ‘Senior Science’ category in The Big Bang Competition – an annual competition designed to inspire young people in STEM and celebrate their ideas and creativity.
For her winning project, Clara looked at developing a biodegradable, cheap hydrogel that could be incorporated into soils and release water slowly, hence helping to combat desertification and drought.
From Clara:
In my project ‘Producing a super-absorbent polymer based on chitosan’, I was trying to create a new hydrogel (a substance which can absorb a large amount of water), made from natural compounds. To do this, I crosslinked chitosan with some naturally occurring acids such as citric acid, and then tested their water absorption.
The thinking behind this project was that the product could be used as a soil additive to increase water retention in arid soils in a bid to help mitigate the effects of desertification.
Although my project gave null results (the compounds produced absorbed less water than pure chitosan), upon subsequent research I realised a large flaw in my experimental method, namely that I hadn’t controlled the pH of the reaction mixture. Nevertheless, I learnt to work independently and efficiently due to a very tight deadline.
I would definitely recommend competitions like the Big Bang competition to other students, because you can focus on an area which you are interested in, outside of the curriculum and the normal string of lessons.
Also, many thanks to Dr Regardsoe and Catherine for their help!
Congratulations Clara – what a fantastic achievement.