Chemistry Challenge 2021 results announced

The results of the RSC Belgium Chemistry Challenge 2021 were announced at our webinar event with John O'Donoghue on 'Chemistry in the Movies' on the evening of 23 September 2021. As for last year, due to COVID19 rules, this year's Chemistry Challenge was also a virtual event that was undertaken remotely by students at their schools.

For the 2021 Challenge, we received entries from the majority of our group of international and European schools in the Brussels area and beyond and, as ever, the Challenge was designed to test the student's chemical knowledge and initiative.

The RSC Belgium Chemical Challenge has three sections:

• A chemistry multiple choice paper (Section A)
• A structured questions on chemistry (Section B), and
• A 'Thinking Matters' paper that is not chemistry based (Section C)

The top results were as follows:

Section A - Multiple choice

First prize for this section was shared by Marcus Waterson from the European School in Mol (ESMol) and Ito Yurie from the British School of Brussels in Tervuren (BSB) who each receive a €50 award. 

There were three winners of €25 second prizes: Matilde Malagodi of St John’s International School in Waterloo (St John's), and Julie Petermans and Hannah Haris of BSB.

Third prizes of €10 went to Vladislav Morozov and Mels Leurs of BSB and Maria Shopova from European School Brussels IV in Laeken (EEB4).

Section B - Structured questions

In this section the first prize of €50 was awarded to Vladislav Morozov of BSB with Marcus Waterson of ESMol and Ito Yurie of BSB picking up second prizes worth €25. A third prize of €10 was awarded to Sungbin Yun from BSB.

Section C - Thinking Matters

For this section the top prize of €50 went to Lilia Kautz of EEB4, with BSB's Rosanne Roberts picking up a second prize of €25, and three third places worth €10 awarded to Antoni Tokaj of St. George’s International School in Luxembourg (St George's), Maria Shopova from EEB4 and Ito Yurie of BSB.

The Keith Price Prize

With excellent performances in both chemistry sections, this year's Keith Price Prize was jointly claimed by Marcus Waterson of ESMol (pictured below) and Ito Yurie of BSB (pictured above), who both received an additional €100. 

Well done to everyone who took part in this year's Chemistry Challenge! Every student that entered the competition receives a certificate of participation. And, of course, we will be running the Challenge again in 2022 and look forward to further widening participation!

Chemistry in the Movies

On the evening of Thursday 23 September 2021 RSC Belgium members and friends were treated to an entertaining and informative talk from Dr. John O'Donoghue of Trinity College Dublin on 'Chemistry in the Movies'. The webinar was also the occasion for the announcement of the prize-winners in our 2021 Chemistry Challenge.

John's snappy talk took a scientific and filmographic look at how chemistry and chemists have been portrayed in the movies - the good, the bad and the ugly - using short clips and simplified graphics to talk about the subject in an engaging and light-hearted format. The movies chosen were based around a number of themes; problem solving, plot devices, chemical companies and people. 

John noted that the 2021 Ig Noble Prize for Chemistry had just been awarded on 9 September to a group of scientists who had analysed the air inside movie theatres to test whether the odours produced by an audience reliably indicate the levels of violence, sex, antisocial behaviour, drug use, and bad language in the movie the audience was watching. Remarkably they did manage to correlate a number of chemicals with different scene types!

Breaking Bad effect

One interesting issue that John explored was whether the TV series Breaking Bad (2008 - 2013) [Netflix, Prime] had an effect on how chemistry is on portrayed on screen? He concluded that it did have a positive effect in terms of showing more chemistry on screen and improving the quality of scientific explanation generally, but it may have also contributed to a new cliché for how chemical scientists are depicted on screen.

Details about where and how to access the movies discussed was also be provided (Netflix, YouTube, Apple etc - see below) and John hoped his talk gave participants the inspiration to start their our own chemistry movie marathon! 

The talk certainly inspired a good discussion with plenty of additional movie suggestions and we hear that some teachers will be looking to incorporate 'chemical movies' in to their lessons.

Movie list

The movies discussed in John's talk in various categories were:

Fictional bad (evil) pharmaceutical and chemical companies 

• Better Living through Chemistry (2014) [Apple, YouTube]
• Formula51 (2001) [Apple, YouTube]
• Erin Brockovich (2000) [Prime, Netflix, YouTube]
• Dark Waters (2019) [Prime, Apple, YouTube]
• Duplicity  (2009) [Prime, Apple, YouTube]
• The Fugitive (1993) [Apple, YouTube]
• Love and Other Drugs (2010) [Prime, Apple, YouTube]
• Mission Impossible 2 (2000) [Apple, YouTube]

Good chemistry for problem solving

• Apollo 13 (1995) [Netflix, Apple, YouTube]
• The Martian (2015) [Disney, Apple, YouTube]

Good chemists, bad chemistry… and Sean Connery

• Medicine man (1992) [Disney, Apple, YouTube]
• The Rock (1996) [Apple, YouTube]

Science teachers inspiring for Good

• Evolution (2001) [Apple, YouTube]
• October Sky (1999) [Prime, Apple, YouTube]

Superhero movies

• Ironman (2008)/ Ironman 2 (2010) [Disney, Apple, YouTube]
• Antman (2015) [Disney, Apple, YouTube] 

Children’s movies

• Wall-E (2008) [Disney, Apple, YouTube]
• Zootropolis (2016) [Disney, YouTube]

For all the films listed above, the link takes you to the IMDB listing for the movie, the year of release is in the normal brackets, and streaming service(s) where you can access the film are listed in the square brackets. Enjoy!

About John

Dr John O’Donoghue is the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Education Coordinator for Ireland supports trainee and established science teachers through continuous professional development (CPD) and new resources. He is based at the School of Chemistry in Trinity College Dublin (TCD) where he teaches chemistry to non-science students and coordinates the unique chemistry education and public engagement (EPE) course for PhD students. He has over 15 years of experience in science communication and in recognition of his achievements, he was greeted by the President of Ireland at the 2017 St. Patricks Day Honours event and was awarded the 2018 Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) “Outstanding Contribution to STEM Communication” National Award. 

We hope to welcome John over to Belgium during 2022 for a schools tour of his Spectroscopy in a Suitcase workshops.

Sun shines on our 2021 Norman Lloyd Scholarship fundraiser

On the afternoon of Saturday 14 August the section held a very successful fundraising social event for our Norman Lloyd Scholarships at Cardiff University. The venue was Casa Setsuko Lloyd in Lasne, where we were hosted by Norman's wife Setsuko and the family. A very sunny afternoon was enjoyed by all and a total of €860 was raised for the fund.

The event had a Spanish theme, courtesy of chief chef Chalks Corriette, and further culinary delights included Timm's Pimms.

As well as delicious food and drink this was a first opportunity for many participants to catch up with friends and colleagues following the various Covid restrictions in Belgium - so there was much to talk about.

And of course a tombola was organised to boost funds.

All in all, a very fine time was had by everyone - and the money raised, when added to the existing fund, will guarantee the continuation of the scholarships for at least two further academic years.

About the Scholarships

The Dr Norman C Lloyd Scholarships were set up by the section and Norman's family and friends in cooperation with Cardiff University to provide an annual scholarship of £1 000 to an undergraduate student, usually in their first year of study and from a disadvantaged background, in the Cardiff School of Chemistry.

To date seven students have benefitted from the fund. 

If you would like to support the Norman Lloyd Scholarships, but were unable to attend the event, please do not hesitate to contact the section secretary directly or make a bank transfer to the RSC Belgium bank account (ING IBAN BE91 3630 8144 4876) with the message ‘Norman Lloyd Scholarship Fund’. Many thanks. 

RSC’s Chemists’ Community Fund

RSC members across Belgium should have received an email from Anna Dearden, the Chemists’ Community Fund Manager at the society. On behalf of the RSC, she extended thoughts and sympathy for everyone affected by the recent extreme weather and flooding across the country and reminded members of the support available from the Chemists’ Community Fund, the benevolent fund for RSC members. 

If you or your family have suffered a negative financial impact due to recent flooding in Belgium, then please consider contacting the service. Although the RSC may only be able to offer limited immediate practical support, the CCF may be able to offer financial assistance to RSC members.

To contact the fund, you can call on +44 (0)1223 853549 or email ccfund@rsc.org. The RSC’s specialist caseworkers can talk you through the application process and may also be able to direct you to additional avenues of support. And any discussions, of course, are completely confidential.

Help and advice

The RSC’s CCF offers impartial guidance, helpful connections and support you can count on. It is part of the benefits of Royal Society of Chemistry membership and allows members to access advice, information and financial assistance whenever the unexpected occurs.

When life feels uncertain, the RSC CCF’s knowledgeable team and network of member volunteers can help guide you, offering confidential help that is as unique as the situation you face.

The service covers pretty much all areas of life including money and advice (Financial assistance, accessing state benefits, budgeting and debt, and confidential legal advice); wellbeing and family (Care and carer support, your mental health, autism support at home, and health and wellbeing resources) and employment and study issues (Job hunting and career advice, supporting work and study, and financial help and grants).

The fund is there to support those members impacted by unexpected life events. The fund is currently looking at what the longer term impact of the COVID pandemic may be on individuals and how it can better offer support not just now but into the future.

You can learn more about the RSC’s Chemists’ Community Fund in this video.

How does chemistry come alive?

On Thursday 27 May 2021 RSC Belgium members and friends were able to explore 'How does chemistry come alive?' in a fascinating webinar with Professor Nick Lane of University College London. Nick described how the continuous reaction of hydrogen and carbon dioxide in the structured environment of hydrothermal vents could have driven the beginnings of metabolism and genetics in protocells at the origin of life on our Earth. 

You can access our video of the webinar either below or via the new RSC Belgium Youtube channel.  

Nick previously talked to us about his fascinating work on bioenergetics, evolution and the origin of life in 2014. He is an evolutionary biochemist and writer in the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at UCLondon. He was awarded the inaugural UCL Provost's Venture Research Prize for his research on evolutionary biochemistry and bioenergetics and his current work focuses on the origin of life, and the origin and evolution of eukaryotes. He was a founding member of the UCL Consortium for Mitochondrial Research, and leads the UCL Research Frontiers Origins of Life programme.

Edible Oils and Fats

On Thursday 22 April 2021 RSC Belgium section members and friends enjoyed a fascinating webinar with Dr. Albert J. Dijkstra on the topic of ‘Edible oils and fats: Origin, chemistry, production, health’. Dr Dijkstra has had a long and varied career in this area and the presentation highlighted his expertise in particular during the question and answer session.   

Because edible oils and fats contain fatty acids that the human body needs but cannot synthesize, they form an essential part of the human diet. Fortunately, nature provides a wide choice of edible oils and fats. Albert’s presentation discussed what oils and fats people used in distant times, how their supply has changed, and described current production figures and methods. The talk will outlined and explained the various processes used to refine the crude oils and to modify them to meet demand for particular properties in specific products. The final topic of the presentation was the various health claims that have been made at different times for various edible oil products: many based more in the minds of the marketing department than any clear nutritional or health benefits.

Dr Dijkstra (pictured during the transmission, above right, with RSC Belgium chairman Bob Crichton) obtained his PhD in gas kinetics from Leiden University in the mid-Sixties and subsequently enjoyed a decade working for ICI in the UK, the Netherlands and eventually as a Senior R&D Project Leader in ICI Europa. He then worked as a freelancer in chemical market research for Charles H Kline before being appointed as R&D Director of the Vandemoortele Group in Belgium from 1978 to 1997. Since then, Albert has been active as a scientific consultant, author, editor, lecturer, and reviewer in the field of edible oil processing.

You can access Albert's presentation as a pdf file here and a video of the webinar is available on the RSC Belgium Youtube channel here and is embedded below.  

Plasma-based CO2 conversion

On Thursday 18 March 2021, the RSC Belgium section of the Royal Society of Chemistry was treated to a fascinating talk from Professor Annemie Bogaerts of the University of Antwerp on plasma-based catalysis and processes. In this second of our online talks of 2021 Annemie described the work of her Research group PLASMANT and in particular 'Plasma-based CO2 conversion' - an area that is gaining increasing interest. 

CO2 conversion into value-added chemicals and fuels is one of the great challenges of the 21st century. However, due to the limitations of traditional thermal approaches, several novel technologies are being developed. One promising approach is plasma technology that has promises mild operating conditions, easy upscaling, and gas activation by energetic electrons instead of heat.

But what are the key advantages to using plasma technology over other novel approaches? Can plasma technology be successful on its own, or can synergies be achieved by combining it with other technologies? And what are the potentials and limitations of plasma technology in general? 

Annemie first provided a brief introduction to plasma science and catalysis in general: highlighting how plasma is formed and what are its major applications. Subsequently she focused on the application of CO2 conversion by plasma and plasma catalysis. Annemie gave an overview of the state-of-the-art in plasma-based CO2 (and CH4) conversion, describing the different types of plasma reactors used and discussing the differences (and potential benefits) compared to other emerging technologies for CO2 conversion.

In the last part of the talk she presented some of the results she and her group have obtained in Antwerp including experiments and modeling to obtain a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms and to improve process performance and yield.

Annemie's talk was very well received and provoked a lively discussion!

You can watch the lecture again below or on our dedicated YouTube channel.