Chemistry projects honored at international chemistry competition

The Intel International Science & Engineering Fair, held on May 14–19 in Los Angeles, showcased research projects by high school students from around the world. The international competition is organized by the Society for Science & the Public and jointly funded by Intel and the Intel Foundation.

This year’s top three prizes went to projects in engineering mechanics, physics, and embedded systems. Additional prizes were given in subject categories, including chemistry, biochemistry, and energy: chemical.

In the chemistry category, the $5,000 Best of Category Award went to Kyle Fridberg of Fairview High School in Boulder, Colo., for his paper titled “Discovery and Characterization of an Undocumented Ferric Sulfate Compound Formed by the Reaction of Gold Ore with Sulfuric Acid.”

In the biochemistry category, the $5,000 Best of Category Award went to ­Karina Movsesian of Prvni Ceske Gymnazium v Karlovych Varech in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic, for her paper titled “The Role of RAD51 Mutation in Cancer Development.”

In the energy: chemical category, the $5,000 Best of Category Award went to Kendra Zhang of Jericho High School in Jericho, N.Y., for her paper titled “A Paper-Based Microbial Fuel Cell for Glucose Monitoring in Saliva.”

ACS was among the corporate, academic, governmental, and science-focused organizations that gave out additional prizes.

Kyle Fridberg received the $4,000 first-place ACS award for his paper.

The $3,000 second-place award went to Arnob Das of Jesuit High School in Portland, Ore., for his project titled “Solution Grown and Tunable Plastic Magnets: Room Temperature Ferromagnetism in Mesoscopic Conjugated Polymer Rings.”

The $2,000 third-place award went to Archana Verma of Jericho High School for her project titled “Spin-Orbit Coupling Induced Heterogeneous Excited-State Dynamics of 6-Coordinate Transition Metal Protodyes.”

The $1,000 fourth-place award went to Alexandra Samoylova and Maria Makarova of the Moscow Chemical Lyceum of Moscow South-Eastern Lyceum & Grammar School Complex for their project titled “Utilization of Carbon Monoxide as a Reducing Agent for C–C and C–N Bond Formation: Application to Asymmetric Catalyst and Synthesis of New Effective Fungicide.”