STUDENT SUPPLEMENT
MAY 2008 • VOLUME 45 • NUMBER 3
Cosmetics,
naturally
Chemicals from
plant biomass
ISSN 0013-1350
Comparability studies
Alternative A-levels
STEM qualifications – harder
than all the rest?
Cambridge Pre-U chemistry set
to challenge students
ISSUE  MAY 
BRIAN GADSBY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
BIRD BRAINS KNOW BEST
Fruit and vegetables are rich in
antioxidants – chemicals thought
to play an important role in
protecting us from illnesses such
as heart disease and certain
cancers. Such chemicals react
with free radicals in the body –
for example hydroxyl radicals,
which attack proteins, lipids and
even DNA within our cells –
rendering them harmless.
While people deliberate
whether or not they believe this
‘antioxidant’ theory and the need
to eat food rich in antioxidants, it
seems our feathered friends don’t
suffer the same misgivings. Fruiteating birds – specifically the
European blackcap, Sylvia
atricapilla, known affectionately as
the Northern Nightingale because
of its tuneful chirp – go out of their
way to select berries with the
highest concentrations of
flavonoids. These polyphenolic
compounds, which contain at least
one phenol group (C6H5OH), are
among the commonest
antioxidants found in Nature.
In a study of blackcaps, Dr Carlo
Catoni and his colleagues at the
University of Freiburg and at the
Vogelwarte Radolfzell Max Plank
Institute for Ornithology in
Germany first established, by using
HPLC (high-pressure liquid
chromatography) and mass
spectrometry, that two specific
flavonoids found in blackberry
extracts are absorbed in the birds’
Black caps favour
fruity flavonoids
blood. They then investigated
whether the birds preferred food
enriched with these flavonoids,
and finally if they gained any
health benefits from ingesting
flavonoids.
According to the researchers,
the blackcaps actively selected
food with added flavonoids, as
evident by its darker colour.
Flavonoids such as anthocyanins
are responsible for much of the
dark colours found in blackberries,
bilberries and elderberries.
Previous studies by the
researchers had shown that
blackcaps do not show colour
preference on nutritionally
identical food.
By measuring the amounts of
antibodies in the birds’ blood, the
researchers found that those fed
on a flavonoid-rich diet produced
more antibodies than birds fed on
a diet with no berry flavonoids.
These results, the researchers say,
imply that flavonoids can boost
the immune system in a living
organism. They hypothesise that
their results may support other
research that points to flavonoids
having beneficial health effects
on people.
Did you know?
The bright red sap from Chinese plants such as Dracaena
cochinchinensis is called ‘Dragon’s blood’. This mixture of
sugars, salts and minerals has been used for thousands of years
in traditional Chinese medicine mainly for treating wounds,
stomach and circulatory problems. Recently, Chinese chemists
identified several flavonoids (polyphenol compounds) in
Dragon’s blood. In an article published in the Journal of
Natural Products, the researchers explain that their results
suggest that these newly identified compounds show promise
as antibacterial agents, and for treating stomach ulcers,
cancer, thrombosis (blood clots) and stroke. It’s worth noting
that ca 70 per cent of all new medicines discovered in the past
25 years have come from plants and natural products.
Download a pdf of this issue at: www.rsc.org/EiC
InfoChem_May.indd 1
IN THIS
ISSUE
Dissolving
plastics
When the fashion
designer met the
chemist…
A day in the
life of…
David Henderson,
accountant
On-screen
chemistry
Sand dunes pose
challenge for heroes
Plus…
That’s chemistry!
Organic prize quiz
Webwatch
Chemical Futoshiki
Editor
Kathryn Roberts
Assistant editor
James Berressem
Design and layout
Dale Dawson
Infochem is a supplement to Education
in Chemistry and is published
bi-monthly by the Royal Society of
Chemistry, Burlington House,
Piccadilly, London W1J 0BA, UK.
020-7437 8656, e-mail: [email protected]
www.rsc.org/Education/EiC/index.asp
© The Royal Society of Chemistry, 2008
Published in January and alternate
months. ISSN: 1752-0533
1
14/04/2008 11:29:56
C  
ISSUE  MAY 
This year saw the launch of a fashion show with a difference. Wonderland, which
opened at the London School of Fashion in January for two weeks, exhibited beautiful
dresses that disappeared in a giant bowl of water before the public’s eyes, setting off
underwater fireworks as they dissolved. Does such imagery merely reflect a division
between the worlds of art and science, or is there another more poignant message?
W
e live in a throwaway
society. We use
myriad materials
every day in all sorts
of ways, giving little
thought to where these materials came from
or where they will end up. Plastics and
increasingly cheap clothing, in particular, are
BARRY EVANS/UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD
Plastics – going out of fashion
2
InfoChem_May.indd 2
metaphors for waste. With landfill sites
reaching crisis point and oil resources
dwindling, few people would argue that we
all need to become more responsible in the
way we use and dispose of such materials. But
how do we get people to think differently
about materials, to think in terms of
sustainability and recycling?
T  
  
A chance encounter between fashion icon
Helen Storey and Tony Ryan, ICI professor of
physical chemistry at Sheffield University, led to
a solution that exploits the glamorous world of
fashion with the equally creative world of
chemistry.
Twenty years ago Helen Storey was
designing clothes for Cher and Madonna, but is
now more interested in finding solutions to
problems such as plastics pollution and world
water shortages. Recently she was working
with a packaging company, trying to come up
with some radical ideas for plastic packaging
that would address plastics waste. ‘Why can’t a
plastic bottle know when its contents have
disappeared and signal the time for the bottle
to disappear?’, she asked herself.
Later, listening to the radio 4 programme,
Material World, she heard Tony Ryan talking
about smart polymers, so she contacted him to
find out whether he could shed any light on
the problem. He invited her to the department
of chemistry at Sheffield and an alliance formed
that, with funding from the Engineering and
Physical Sciences Research Council’s (EPSRC)
public engagement of science programme, has
recently culminated in Wonderland. The
exhibition of dissolvable textiles has an
underlying message on sustainable materials,
and has seen the chemist and the fashion
designer go on to develop a water purification
system for people in the developing world.
You may copy this issue for use within schools
14/04/2008 11:30:25

Ryan told Infochem, ‘We are both keen to get
people to think about the way they use
materials and to use them more responsibly.
But rather than preach about it, we realised we
could reach a wider group of people by using
fashion and glamour’.
ALEX MAGUIRE
B  
Ryan knew of a polymer that was dry to touch,
making it suitable to work up into dresses, and
would dissolve in water. ‘Helen would be able
to make beautiful gowns in which we could
embed all sorts of chemistry, and they would
obey the second law of thermodynamics and
dissolve’. This polymer, he explained, is used to
form the clear pouches that hold laundry and
dishwashing liquids, and dissolves in water.
Detergents comprise salts which are attracted
to water more than the polymer is – the water
in the liquid detergent is bound so strongly by
the salt ions that only when the polymer is in
large amounts of water, as is the case in a
washing machine or dishwasher, will it dissolve.
The polymer is polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), but
because the monomer, vinyl alcohol (ethenol,
CH2=CH(OH)), doesn’t exist on its own (it
coexists in equilibrium with its isomeric ketone,
CH3CHO), PVA is made by polymerising vinyl
acetate (ethenyl ethanoate), followed by a
saponification reaction. The latter step cleaves
the ester, via hydrolysis, to form the alcohol. The
result is a copolymer of vinyl alcohol and vinyl
acetate, the relative amounts of which can be
varied by controlling the saponification
reaction. The more acetate, the less soluble in
water is the copolymer; the more alcohol, the
more soluble in water is the copolymer. The
temperature at which the copolymer dissolves
can thus be controlled by changing the relative
amounts of acetate and alcohol.
So the polymer, explained Ryan, could be
used to make a bottle that when empty could
be filled with boiling water, which would
dissolve the polymer and on cooling would
form a gel if a crosslinking molecule, such
as borax (disodium tetraborate(III)-10water), was added. If the cap of the bottle
were designed like a pepper pot and
contained flowering or herb seeds and
rooting compound, then where once you
had a plastic bottle which you would have
thrown away, you could have flowers or herbs
growing instead.
To add to the artistic effect of the dissolving
dresses at the exhibition, Ryan provided the
You may copy this issue for use within schools
InfoChem_May.indd 3
Plastics at an exhibition…
Designer plastics…
designers with ‘underwater fireworks’, which
could be incorporated in the buttons. Small
pouches, made of the same copolymer are
filled with equal amounts of bicarbonate of
soda (sodium hydrogen carbonate) and
sodium citrate (the sodium salt of citric acid,
2-hydroxypropane-1,2,3-tricarboxylic acid), and
a solid dye. As water leaks into the pouch, the
bicarbonate of soda and sodium citrate react,
producing carbon dioxide gas, which fires the
dye into solution, producing coloured
streamers in the water as it sinks. A giant
magnifying glass bowl to hold the water adds
to the effect. Ryan comments, ‘People will ask,
“why are you destroying those beautiful
gowns?” and we will say: “to make you think
about how you are slowly destroying the planet
by throwing away materials”. And because we
want them to think in new ways about
materials, plants are seen growing from the
gooey gel that the dresses have changed into’.
Storey designed the dresses and her team
made up the garments using lasers to cut the
‘fabric’ and specially designed heat sealers –
essentially a wheel on the end of a soldering
iron – to bond seams together. Intricate
patterns, similar in appearance to lace, could be
cut out using the lasers.
T -
Tony Ryan is well known in the chemistry
community for his work on polymers. The
focus of his recent research has been in the
development of nanoscale (10–9 m), synthetic
muscle, which has the potential to be used as
molecular motors for the electronics industry,
in robotics for example. For this he uses a
polymer with ionic side groups, the ionic

3
14/04/2008 11:31:03
“…   … 
   
 .”
ISSUE  MAY 

nature of which can be switched ‘on’ or ‘off ’ by
changing the pH of its environment.
In its ionic state, at pH 4–6 (in a weak acid),
the polymer attracts water and swells up, and
in its non-ionic state (at low pH) the polymer
loses water and collapses. ‘By separating the
weakly and strongly acidic solutions with a
membrane (thus creating an osmotic pressure
between the two solutions) we can change
the pH of the environment of the polymer’,
explains Ryan, ‘and get the synthetic muscle to
change shape and thus do work’.
While talking to the artists about his work,
Ryan tells them how, in a similar system, the
osmotic pressure between two liquids can be
exploited to provide clean drinking water for
soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. ‘The soldiers
have a bag made of regenerated cellulose (the
membrane) containing salts and sugar’, he
says. ‘When they come across a stream or a
pool of dirty water, the soldiers fill up their
bags, and the osmotic pressure created by the
salt/sugar solution pulls clean water through
the membrane. Intrigued, the artists ask,
‘could you use the same materials that you use
for your synthetic muscles in a water
purification system?.’
In collaboration with the artists, Ryan and
his team at Sheffield have developed a water
purification ‘pillow’ based on ‘synthetic
muscle’, that could be used by the military and
people in developing countries. In dirty,
contaminated water, the polymer electrolyte
absorbs pure water across a membrane and
swells up. To release the water, simply apply a
pressure that is bigger than the osmotic
Seams easy…
pressure and the water comes out – take the
membrane away and squeeze the gel. The
portable system has been awarded a patent
and Ryan is currently seeking venture capital
to develop the prototype for the market.
The Wonderland exhibition will be in
Sheffield in a city-wide event at Meadowhall,
the University of Sheffield, the Botanical
Gardens, and the Millennium Galleries
between 18 June and 13 July; and in Belfast
at the Ormeau Baths Gallery, 7 October to
9 November.
Kathryn Roberts
that’s chemistry!
Simon Cotton, chemistry teacher at Uppingham School, looks at the molecules in our lives. In this issue: Food is chemistry
Why do you say that?
We eat, smell and taste molecules.
ALEX MAGUIRE
Don’t we eat food to give us energy?
That is an important function of food, but it also
supplies protein to provide us with amino acids.
Our bodies use these to make other proteins.
What are amino acids and proteins?
Most amino acids, such as alanine (1), contain
just carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen
atoms. They have an amine (–NH2) and a
carboxylic acid (–CO2H) group, hence the name
amino acid. An amino acid can join – at either
end – with another amino acid to form a
dipeptide (2), linked by a peptide bond. This
bond is formed by a condensation reaction
involving the removal of a H2O molecule.
Because amino acids can react at either end, they
can form long chain molecules. A molecule with
4
InfoChem_May.indd 4
Peptide bond
lots of peptide bonds is called a polypeptide. If
the molecular weight of a polypeptide is more
than 6000, it is known as a protein. There are 20
different amino acids that are used in different
combinations to make the proteins in our
bodies. The body is unable to make 10 of these
amino acids, which means we have to get
them through our diet.
H O
H2N C
H O H H O
C OH
H2N C
CH3
CH3
(1) Alanine
H3C
H3C
CH3
(3) Heptan-2-one
Why does food have a taste and smell?
Life would be boring otherwise. Food is more
attractive because of molecules which impart
flavour and odour. These traits also give us clues
about what we are eating, eg heptan-2-one (3) is
C OH
CH3
(2) Dipeptide
O
What happens to protein we eat?
Our bodies take in food proteins, break them
down into their amino acid constituents and
then reassemble them in different sequences
and combinations to make different proteins.
C N C
N
CH3
CH3
(4) Trimethylamine
a characteristic flavour compound of blue cheese.
When food goes bad, proteins break down into
smaller molecules with higher vapour pressures,
which we detect as a smell. These act as a
warning. For example, when fish protein is
attacked by enzymes and bacteria the noxious
chemical trimethylamine (4) is formed which we
recognise as the odour of rotting fish. ■
You may copy this issue for use within schools
14/04/2008 11:31:27
Jonathan Hare asks…
SAND DUNES: can you crank an
ambulance up a sand dune?
Ice cold in Alex is a classic black and white film
starring Sylvia Syms, John Mills and Anthony
Quayle. In 1942 in the Libyan war zone, the
three find themselves crossing a mined
desert in an army ambulance trying to get
back to the safety of Alexandria. Nearing the
end of their journey they are forced to
attempt to drive up a massive sand dune to
escape the desert. Realising that the engine
will simply burn out in the intense heat, they
do a clever thing. They remove the spark
plugs from the engine so that the pistons no
longer limit the motion of the engine, put the
engine in lowest gear and use the crank
handle to crank the ambulance up the dune.
After several tries they succeed, allowing
them to drive back to Alex. There is a classic
scene towards the end of the film where they
toast their safe arrival, downing several
glasses of beer – hence ‘Ice cold in Alex’! But
can it be done?
In our Hollywood science TV series Robert
Llewellyn and I cranked a car up a steep hill to
test this stunt. The ambulance would have
been much heavier but it would have had a
greater gear ratio and so we felt confident
that they could have done it – providing the
slope of the dune was not too great.
So how steep is a sand dune? You might
think that a sand dune could be any steepness,
from almost flat to a vertical cliff but this is not
so. It’s true that sandstone or chalk can produce
near vertical cliffs as you can see in quarries or
on the south coast such as Beachy Head and
the White cliffs of Dover. But this is because
they are solid; sand is more fluid.
Bright spark has the answer
true for many different types of small
particles, including sand. Our model gives us
some insight into the maximum steepness of
a sand dune – about 30–40 degrees.
Since we know that there is a maximum
angle beyond which the grains can’t go it
An experiment
means we can be much more confident that
Try this experiment. Take a salt cellar and pour our heroes could have cranked the
salt onto a flat table top. A little mound of salt ambulance up the sand dune. It would have
will build-up and it looks like it will grow ever been a lot of hard work though!
steeper to make a pile. All of a sudden you
(If you want to find out more about the
notice that the grains slip and the pile loses
science of flowing particles go to http://
height to form a mound with a larger area
www.seed.slb.com/en/scictr/lab/heleshaw/
base. As you continue to add more salt the
index.htm.)
mound grows higher and steeper but at a
Dr Jonathan Hare, The CSC, Chemistry Department, University
maximum angle we see our ‘salt dune’ slips.
of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9ET (www.creative-science.org.uk/TV.
What is true of our salt crystal model is also html).
webwatch
ASSOCIATED BRITISH/THE KOBAL COLLECTION
Emma Woodley, RSC assistant education manager, takes a look at some websites of interest to students
Earth – our world in
motion
http://www.amnh.org/ology/
earth/
This website, from the American
Museum of Natural History, is
packed with fascinating facts about
the structure of the Earth, covering
rocks, volcanoes, earthquakes, and
plate tectonics. It has good
animations and illustrations, and is
interactive. There are also interviews
with Earth scientists and many
experiments for you to try at home.
You may copy this issue for use within schools
InfoChem_May.indd 5
Plate tectonics
earthquakes. The mechanisms that
cause the plates of the crust to
move are described in detail, and
This website describes how the
there are clear animations showing
theories of the development of the
you how we believe the surface of
Earth evolved – its mountain ranges, the Earth has changed over the past
the causes of volcanoes and
750 million years.
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/
geology/tectonics.htlm
5
14/04/2008 11:31:50
Z
I
U
Q
E
Z
I
R
P
C
I
ORGAN
£50 OF HMV TOKENS TO BE WON!
If you are studying AS/A2 chemistry, have a go at Infochem’s latest quiz and maybe your revision might pay for some
new DVDs, CDs, books or computer games. The questions, contributed by chemistry teacher Simon Cotton of
Uppingham School, are based on organic chemistry covered in the current A-level specifications.
ISSUE  MAY 
Use the letters a–q to answer the questions
(apart from question 1).
1. Name each compound.
Which compound(s) are:
2. Alkanes?
3. Alkenes?
4. Arenes?
5. Cyclic hydrocarbons?
Which compound(s):
6. Decolourise bromine water in the dark?
7. Only react with Cl2 in the dark in the presence of
a Lewis acid such as AlCl3?
8. Undergo addition with HBr?
9. Can be oxidised to benzoic acid on boiling
with KMnO4 solution?
10. Undergo side chain substitution with Cl2
in the presence of uv light?
11. Do not occur in Nature but are made by cracking?
12. Can be catalytically hydrated to make alcohols?
13. Undergo electrophilic substitution to make
a nitro compound?
14. Are three isomers?
15. Are two more pairs of isomers?
16. Add HCl to form a tertiary halide?
17. Add HCl to form a secondary halide?
18. Add HCl to form a primary halide?
19. Exist as geometric isomers?
20. Have a chiral carbon?
21. Result from an elimination reaction of
2-chlorobutane?
22. Can be made by an isomerisation reaction of E?
23. Could be made industrially by reforming
reactions of O?
24. Are planar?
25. Can be polymerised to make polystyrene?
26. Are used to make ethylbenzene
industrially?
27. Only have bond angles at carbon ca 109½°?
28. Only have bond angles at carbon ca 120°?
29. Have bond angles at carbon both ca 109½°
and ca 120°?
6
InfoChem_May.indd 6
CH2
H3C
(a)
H3C
CH2
CH3
CH3
(b)
(c)
CH3
H3C
H3C
CH2
(e)
(d)
CH3
H3C
(f)
CH3
(h)
(g)
CH3
(i)
CH2
H3C
H2C
(k)
CH2
(l)
(j)
CH2
CH3
CH3 H3C
(o)
(n)
(m)
CH3
CH3
H3C
CH3
H3C
(p)
(q)
SEND YOU ANSWERS TO:
The Editor, Education in Chemistry, the Royal Society of
Chemistry, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BA (email: [email protected]), to arrive no later than Friday 6 June.
First entry out of the editor’s hat with correct answers
to all 29 questions will receive a £50 HMV token.
You may copy this issue for use within schools
14/04/2008 11:32:14
A     …
ACCOUNTANT:
David Henderson
David is in the final year of a three-year contract with
BDO Stoy Hayward to qualify as an accountant. He talks
to James Berressem about his typical day.
BDO Stoy Hayward is the UK member firm of accountancy network
BDO International. Based in London, David joined the firm on its
graduate training programme (GTP) in 2005 along with some 40
other graduates. He is currently a senior on the GTP, studying
towards an ACA accountancy qualification and works in the audit
and business assurance department. As part of his contract, David
shares his time between work and periods of up to three weeks’
paid study/exam leave at a financial training college. At the end of
this year, after 450 days’ work experience and, importantly, nine
exams passed, he will qualify as a chartered accountant.
A  
Audit and assurance services offered by accountancy firms provide
an independent opinion on information published by client
companies. A financial audit aims to ensure that the financial
statements released by a company are accurate, prepared correctly,
and provide a fair representation of the organisation’s position and
performance to interested parties, eg shareholders.
David specialises in audits for businesses in the property and
professional services sectors – his clients range from large, listed
property companies with over £2 billion assets to growing architect
firms with turnovers of £1–6 million. Each audit lasts on average
PATHWAY TO SUCCESS
●
●
2005–present, qualifying accountant,
BDO Stoy Hayward, London
2004–05, analytical researcher, Health and
Beauty Care R&D, Procter & Gamble,
Egham
2000–04, BSc chemistry with year in
industry (2.i), University of Nottingham
1998–2000, chemistry, physics and maths
A-levels, Lymm High School, Cheshire
●
●
You may copy this issue for use within schools
InfoChem_May.indd 7
three weeks and
involves obtaining an
in-depth understanding of the client’s
operations, the industry
in which the company
operates and the commercial and financial issues it faces.
For most of the project David spends each day visiting the client’s
premises with his audit team, which comprises a junior and a semisenior (roles he has progressed through while on the GTP). The team
collect evidence to support their assessment of the company’s
financial statements. As the senior on the audit team David meets
with the client’s managing or financial directors – his experience in
industry has helped prepare him for dealing with such high-level
staff.
David is responsible for organising and monitoring the audit
team’s work. He delegates many of the repetitive tasks involved in
auditing, such as checking invoices and bank statements, to his
junior while his semi-senior colleague might work on the audit of
stock/work in progress, which can be governed by complex
accounting standards. This frees up his time to discuss with the
client the business strategy and advise on how to manage potential
risks. However, on the rare occasion, some jobs can involve
completing the accounts for the clients, which requires David to use
accounting skills such as double entry book-keeping.
Back at BDO’s office David finalises the audit file, chasing up the
client for outstanding documents and explanations. When all the
required evidence has been analysed and signed off, David
compiles a report detailing the findings of the audit. A BDO partner
reviews this at a final meeting with the client’s managing director to
discuss any issues prior to signing off the accounts.
David Henderson
Q 
Although the pressure to pass exams makes this qualifying period
stressful, David enjoys the varied nature of his work and the
challenges this brings – he is constantly working with new people
in different environments during audits. The ACA qualification will
give him a good grounding in business knowledge, which David
hopes will unlock many new career opportunities. ■
7
14/04/2008 11:32:43
£50 OF HMV TOKENS TO BE WON!
ISSUE  MAY 
PRIZE WORDSEARCH No. 39
Students are invited to find the 34 words/expressions associated with
spices hidden in this grid. Words read in any direction, but are always in
a straight line. Some letters may be used more than once. When all the
words are found, the unused letters, read in order, will spell a further
five-letter word. Please send your answers to the Editor at the usual
address to arrive no later than Friday 6 June. First correct answer out of
the editor’s hat will receive a £20 HMV token.
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K
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H
ALKYLAMIDE
FAMILY
ALDEHYDES
AROMA
BAY LEAVES
BLACK PEPPERS
BUDS OF CLOVES
CELL
CHILLI PEPPERS
CINNAMALDEHYDE
CINNAMON
CLOVES
COOK
CORIANDER
CROCETIN
DIET
EAT
ENZYMES
GINGER
GINGEROL
HOT
HYDROCARBON
CHAIN
INDIAN LONG
PEPPERS
NUTMEG
PELLITORINE
PICROCROCIN
PIPERINE
PIPERLONGUMINE
SAFRANAL
SAFFRON
SEED
SPICES
THERMAL
STIMULUS
TURMERIC
ZEAXANTHIN
FUTOSHIKI CHEMICAL
ELEMENTS No. 1
Contributed by education consultant John Payne, this is Benchtalk’s
chemical take on the Japanese number puzzle Futoshiki. Students
are invited to solve the puzzle by completing the grid using the
symbols of the Group 18 elements helium, neon, argon, krypton
and xenon.
The objective is the same as for numbers in Futoshiki: each of the
five elements must appear only once in each row and each column.
The ‘greater than’ or ‘less than’ signs between some of the squares
indicate where an element must have an atomic number larger or
smaller than its neighbour.
Please send you answers to: the Editor, Education in Chemistry, the
Royal Society of Chemistry, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London
W1J 0BA, to arrive no later than Friday 6 June. First out of the
editor’s hat to have correctly completed the grid will receive a £30
HMV token.

Kr

The winner was Paige Johnson of Biddulph High School, Biddulph, Stoke-on-Trent
The seven-letter word was DEGRADE.
8
InfoChem_May.indd 8




Ar
1
i u m
u r a
g
z i n
c o p p e
s
t i
c h r o m i u
l i t h i u m
c a
l
c
10
2
3
4
5
6
7
March PRIZE WORDSEARCH No. 38 winner
Xe
8
9
7
n i u m
o l d
c
r
o d i u m
n
m
Find the element no. 2
solutions and winner
The winner was Fatima Khalil of
Claremont High School, Harrow.
Download a pdf of this issue at: www.rsc.org/EiC
14/04/2008 13:08:55