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Advanced Higher Science Projects

I am currently completing my advanced higher physics and chemistry projects but since I have 0 guidance from any teacher, I don’t know at what stage I should currently be at. I’m just here to ask what stage of the project is everyone on?

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Reply 1

@MaryamMajick maybe you can help with this?

Reply 2

Original post
by jasmineva3128
@MaryamMajick maybe you can help with this?

She’s already helped me a lot in a different chat XD

Reply 3

@jasmineva3128 thanks for tagging me, I was going to schpeel again before I recognised OPs username! Let me know if there are any other questions, I'd be happy to help x

Reply 4

Original post
by Dreamcrab0
I am currently completing my advanced higher physics and chemistry projects but since I have 0 guidance from any teacher, I don’t know at what stage I should currently be at. I’m just here to ask what stage of the project is everyone on?

For physics I am have completed experiment 1 and have results and a graph for experiment 2, im half way through underlying physics for experiment2. For chemistry I have written the whole project and just have to update with teacher's feedback.
idk if this would help you but the deadlines my teachers gave our classes are:
physics ex2 12th feb
ex3 27th feb
chemistry draft 2 of the whole project 26th feb
I think the final deadlines are around the middle of march

Reply 5

Also advanced higher projects with no teacher guidance sounds pretty intense, I don't think im doing the same experiments as you but if I can help at all let me know : )

Reply 6

Original post
by clippy_61
Also advanced higher projects with no teacher guidance sounds pretty intense, I don't think im doing the same experiments as you but if I can help at all let me know : )

I’m doing an experiment rn XD

Reply 7

Okay… massive issue, my physics assignment is going fine but my chemistry one is DREADFUL!!!! Trying to create aspirin is miserable, especially when it just refuses to recrystallise. I have no idea what I can do for my second procedure as trying to do anything else, HELPPPP!!! Titration ain’t gonna help, I assume I just need a purity test and I’m finished? How many do I need???? I’m so confused :<

Reply 8

Original post
by Dreamcrab0
Okay… massive issue, my physics assignment is going fine but my chemistry one is DREADFUL!!!! Trying to create aspirin is miserable, especially when it just refuses to recrystallise. I have no idea what I can do for my second procedure as trying to do anything else, HELPPPP!!! Titration ain’t gonna help, I assume I just need a purity test and I’m finished? How many do I need???? I’m so confused :<


Hello, I'm sure this doesn't help but I did just want to say this synthesis procedures are known for being difficult and we were all advised how hard they were.

It is hard in terms of your second procedure because a lot of people will do purity tests which you can't do if your synthesis wasn't working.

I'm not familiar with the method for making aspirin but if there are any non standard solutions you use (e.g. sodium hydroxide or something, just a random example) you could do a standardization? That's where you do a titration of a standard solution against another non standard solution to find the precise concentration (up to 3 sig figs of the non standard one).

I did quite a few of those in my project and it filled it out for a few extra procedures as my basic one was quite simple.

Hope that helps a bitt.

I do have a friend who did synthesis as well and she was very into chemistry. I coulddd get in contact with her as well if u want she might have more specific tips. I think she made aspirin or something similar as well.

Reply 9

Original post
by MaryamMajick
Hello, I'm sure this doesn't help but I did just want to say this synthesis procedures are known for being difficult and we were all advised how hard they were.
It is hard in terms of your second procedure because a lot of people will do purity tests which you can't do if your synthesis wasn't working.
I'm not familiar with the method for making aspirin but if there are any non standard solutions you use (e.g. sodium hydroxide or something, just a random example) you could do a standardization? That's where you do a titration of a standard solution against another non standard solution to find the precise concentration (up to 3 sig figs of the non standard one).
I did quite a few of those in my project and it filled it out for a few extra procedures as my basic one was quite simple.
Hope that helps a bitt.
I do have a friend who did synthesis as well and she was very into chemistry. I coulddd get in contact with her as well if u want she might have more specific tips. I think she made aspirin or something similar as well.


I did manage to make something but the percentage yield is like 30% and in pretty sure the purity is down the drain. I did manage to do a titration with sodium hydroxide and KHP but I'm not sure what to do with the results, it's not really relevant to aspirin :P

Reply 10

Original post
by Dreamcrab0
Okay… massive issue, my physics assignment is going fine but my chemistry one is DREADFUL!!!! Trying to create aspirin is miserable, especially when it just refuses to recrystallise. I have no idea what I can do for my second procedure as trying to do anything else, HELPPPP!!! Titration ain’t gonna help, I assume I just need a purity test and I’m finished? How many do I need???? I’m so confused :<


im not that familliar with synthesis of aspirin but I know someone whos doing it this year and he did TLC

Reply 11

Original post
by clippy_61
im not that familliar with synthesis of aspirin but I know someone whos doing it this year and he did TLC


Yh, I'm thinking of switching to that as it means a lot less experimenting and I can get on to actually trying to get down data instead of smelling ethanoic acid and ethanol the whole time

Reply 12

Original post
by Dreamcrab0
I did manage to make something but the percentage yield is like 30% and in pretty sure the purity is down the drain. I did manage to do a titration with sodium hydroxide and KHP but I'm not sure what to do with the results, it's not really relevant to aspirin :P


Yeah that's tricky because for mine (it was a back titration) the concentrations were directly relevant to my calculations so having them be more accurate affected my results.

Keep in mind you could still do a purity test even if you haven't made much and the results are bad. Bad results don't equal a bad project. I'm sure you've heard that before and rolled your eyes (I certainly did lol) but it's true!

It might even be worth thinking about how the concentrations from the standardization affects your percentage yield - if you have a higher/lower concentration than expected what does that do to the amount of aspirin made if anything? Might lead nowhere but could be an interesting bit of chemistry to mention in the evaluation.

Double check this in the assignment specs as well, but I feel like the second procedure can be a replicate as well? I don't know what you are like for lab time, if your school is had a deadline it would be hard to meet - I know the synthesis procedure is really time consuming - but even just doing it again and comparing results could be enough.

In terms of calculation/manipulation all you have to have is an AH standard. So I would incorporate the results from your standardisatio, the percentage yield calculation - do a few uncertainty calculations as well, and that should cover you.

Let me know if that makes sense x

Reply 13

The issue is: with aspirin and a back titration is needed. That means I need to not only standarduse the NaOH solution but then also react with aspirin to titrate that against HCl. The project spec isn't great ta mentioning specifics but apparently the synthesis (procedure 1) and a purity test (procedure 2) look to be enough? Can't tell though, anyway, I'm very tempted to just give up on the titrations all together as I'm using through quite a bit of KHP

Reply 14

Original post
by Dreamcrab0
The issue is: with aspirin and a back titration is needed. That means I need to not only standarduse the NaOH solution but then also react with aspirin to titrate that against HCl. The project spec isn't great ta mentioning specifics but apparently the synthesis (procedure 1) and a purity test (procedure 2) look to be enough? Can't tell though, anyway, I'm very tempted to just give up on the titrations all together as I'm using through quite a bit of KHP


Definitely true titrations use up so much and then if you have to order a new batch it becomes pointless anyway. My actual experiment only used a little so I got away with it.

But I would say if you have enough to do a purity test do that and it should be fine. Your results don't need to be good so long as you can talk about why that might be in the evaluation. Consider doing some error/uncertainty calculations and that gets you a good amount of evaluation marks on its own.

Reply 15

Original post
by MaryamMajick
Definitely true titrations use up so much and then if you have to order a new batch it becomes pointless anyway. My actual experiment only used a little so I got away with it.
But I would say if you have enough to do a purity test do that and it should be fine. Your results don't need to be good so long as you can talk about why that might be in the evaluation. Consider doing some error/uncertainty calculations and that gets you a good amount of evaluation marks on its own.


Yeah, Imma try getting most of the marks from the evaluation because so much went wrong XD
How would I even start with uncertainty calculations in chemistry? I know how to do it with physics but not with chem

Reply 16

Original post
by Dreamcrab0
Yeah, Imma try getting most of the marks from the evaluation because so much went wrong XD
How would I even start with uncertainty calculations in chemistry? I know how to do it with physics but not with chem


You should still be able to get most of the marks for things like procedure, tables of results, calculations, etc.

If I remember right there should only be a few marks for evaluation.

In terms of calculating the uncertainty, it's a case of combining the source uncertainty in the apparatus you used. I'll see if I can dig up the document my teachers gave us explaining it and type out the steps this weekend x

Reply 17

Hello!

Thought I would link to this sheet explaining how to do error calculations for chemistry that I found.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aA6ITmkpcQWVjL71lK0ENvWeT1kgO7iu/view?usp=drive_link

Let me know if that doesn't work. Hope it's helpful x

Reply 18

Original post
by MaryamMajick
Hello!
Thought I would link to this sheet explaining how to do error calculations for chemistry that I found.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aA6ITmkpcQWVjL71lK0ENvWeT1kgO7iu/view?usp=drive_link
Let me know if that doesn't work. Hope it's helpful x

It doesn’t work XD
It says I need access :P

Reply 19

Original post
by Dreamcrab0
It doesn’t work XD
It says I need access :P

My bad, can you try it now? I've changed it to anyone with the link

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