Extended Essay Research Reflection Space

I have done most of my experimental work but I have a small part left. Doing the experiments, I found that what was the most difficult was getting started but as I did the experiments I gained momentum and felt more engaged in my topic. Although I felt like there were many sources of errors due to the fact that the biodiesel synthesized was not done with the best equipments the results I got seem to be pretty good. Because I rarely stay in the lab for a long period of time working, it was an inspiring experience which made me realize how much I enjoy being in the lab and researching what I am curious about. Although it was a struggle to discipline myself to go to the lab every day and conduct experiments, I believe that being able to see my own progress made me keep going.

I still need to analyze all of my results and draw accurate conclusions out of them, which I will finish doing once I have all of my data. I hope that my essay will be able to present my findings and that this topic seems interesting to other people as well.

I have finalized my topic and decided on researching about biodiesel. I will be investigating how much energy different types of biodiesel can give by making biodiesel from different types of vegetable oils, including sunflower oil, olive oil, and coconut oil.

To do this, first I will synthesize the biodiesel by reacting the vegetable oils with methanol, using KOH and NaOH as catalysts, to see if the catalysts make a difference.
Then, using calorimetry, I will find the enthalpy of combustion for each of the types of synthesized biodiesel to see which is the best for its purpose as a fuel.

I plan on starting my experimental work as soon as possible.

My research question and draft thesis is still far from being perfect. I plan on going over it with my supervisor to make it better and hope to be able to get more specific and in depth. I have been having some difficulties, especially because I am not 100% sure I really want to research esterification reactions and how I could make it interesting so that I have a personal involvement in the matter.

To be honest, these last weeks have been very busy and full of big assignments and assessments. Therefore, I have not been able to do as much writing and researching as I would have liked to. I am not very happy with the progress I have been making and have been finding this whole IB course very stressful. I still need to do an enormous amount of research and start on my introduction.

I am stressing right now because I am not sure in which direction to go, especially because many of the topics in chemistry have not yet been covered which makes it harder to have a specific topic. I have found a lot of interesting ideas but none seem to appear as a good idea on which an extended essay could be written on.

After further research and comparing with exemplar extended essays, I have started to question my topic and considered other options I have. My initial idea of investigating perfume’s components still is an option but I have tried to make it more general to look at specific reactions that occur in a number of places, to look at a trend. This is because coming up with a process or a practical experiment about perfume’s components was hard as I could not think of an interesting property to investigate. Starting from the idea of perfumes, I have looked at esters and how they have distinct smells depending on the alcohol and organic acid they are made from. Esters are also used in many every day things such as perfumes, solvents, and flavoring. This makes it possible to explore the specific reaction between alcohols and organic acids and the safety of using esters.

My plan for the moment is to go and talk to my supervisor and ask for advice as well as further direction on how to organize my essay.

The extended essay process has started off pretty well in my opinion. Although I am anxious to work on it, I am also excited and ready to research about a topic that fascinates me.

From the start, I knew that I wanted to do my extended essay on chemistry as it is a subject that I am really passionate about. However, I did not have very clear ideas about the specifics and I was nervous. But while learning in class about alcohols, I found a topic that really interests me, which is perfume and decided to apply chemistry to something that around us in our every day lives. As a girl, I am really interested in perfume and I wondered how it was that different perfumes smelt stronger or weaker, lasted for different amounts of time and could have differences in quality. This lead to me thinking about how its components changed the properties of the perfume.

Reading the exemplar, I feel like my topic needs to be more specific and narrowed down. I also need to come up with a way to test different samples. On Wednesday, I quickly met with my supervisor who told me to come up with a method and to talk to him once I conducted more research. It gave me a better idea of what and how to find more information and set up my research. At the moment, I think the best idea is to make perfume with different proportions of the ingredients and either test its volatility or ability to stay on the skin for a long period of time. It would also be interesting to compare it to existing products, especially at different prices to see whether there really is a big difference. However, I need to stay on the topic and make sure the essay is purely chemistry and that I do not get distracted by the many possibilities this essay could be about by focusing on one particular aspect.

I plan on working a couple of hours every week, especially during the break to get more research done and be on track for completing my essay.