Science - Exploring Chemical Compounds

We are all used to flame being yellow-orange. But can we turn a flame to a different colour? Last Monday Y10 chemists explored different chemical compounds at an atomic level. They used a simple flame test to observe the colour of light produced when various metal compounds are burned.   

Many ions of met­als and non-met­als turn flame dif­fer­ent col­ours. This is be­cause when heat­ed, atoms move to an ex­cit­ed (or un­sta­ble) state. When they re­turn to their orig­i­nal (sta­ble) state, the ex­cess of ac­cu­mu­lat­ed en­er­gy is re­leased in the form of light of a cer­tain wave­length, which is char­ac­ter­ised by the col­our we ob­serve. This amaz­ing prop­er­ty is used to make coloured fire­works. 

Students will be looking at this in more detail in GCSE and A-level Chemistry. 

A huge thank you to the following Y12 scientists for their help: Mania, Anuyah, Roberto, Elona, Moska, Fardous and Yasmin. 

Congratulations to Sienna (7N) for making it into the top 5 in the Bayer annual lab coat design competition. Best of luck for the final round of judging!