The work I need is a Chemistry Extended Essay (EE). The EE is a compulsory element of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Programme, which I take in my international school.
You can choose to write it in any subject you take and I chose Chemistry, as I would like to study Chemistry at university. On top of that, a top score in your EE can give you 3 additional points in your final diploma score, essential to get in a good university.
Having said that, I will try to describe the work I need to hand in in as much details as possible, so that you can understand what I need and produce an excellent work.
First of all, I attach some documents, provided by the IB Organization (IBO), to let you understand the general structure of an EE and in particular of a science EE. The material I attach include:
– The EE Guide provided by the IBO, which includes a general part about the EE and a specific section for every subject, including Chemistry. This chemistry specific section is extremely important to write the EE as it contains a list of the criteria based on which an external examiner will mark my work. Fulfilling all the requirements of all the criteria is essential to have a top score, which is what I aim to. (EE Guide, PDF)
– Two examples of past Chemistry EEs written by other student which scored the maximum
– 2 documents I wrote with tips our teachers gave us about writing this work. They are mainly bullet point lists of tips to write a good essay, things to remember to include and so on. (“EE Tips” and ” CHEM EE STRUCTURE AND CRITERIA” )
Talking more specifically about my work.
When I decided to write my EE in Chemistry I had to come up with an idea for an experiment to do and get data to write the EE.
I started from a document called “Experiment No. 8, Reaction Kinetics Hydrolysis of ethyl acetate ester” (which I attach, it is a PDF).
In this experiment the acidic hydrolysis of ethyl acetate is performed to investigate the reaction kinetics.
My initial idea was to adapt this experiment to the hydrolysis of ethyl benzoate. In this way I would have:
– Done a different experiment without copying this one, but using it as a starting point to plan my own experiment.
– Worked out different quantities showing how I calculated them from another experiment
– Talked about the benzene group and maybe comment and explain my results making a reference to its effect on the kinetics of the reaction.
– I also wanted to use a spectrophotometer together with the titration in order to use two different methods to investigate the reaction as this is a plus and very appreciated thing in the IB.
I performed the experiment at 5 different temperatures to investigate the effect of temperature on the reaction kinetics. Unfortunately, however, I found out the benzoate did not absorb enough in the UV-Visible spectrum for the spectrophotometer to detect it so I was unable to use it. Nevertheless, I could have still mentioned my try and explain why it did not work out. But on top of this, the experiment gave me odd results so I do not know if I can write about it.
I also performed the same experiment, with the same 5 temperatures, using the ester ethyl acetate. Using this ester, however, I could only used one method, the titration. Moreover, this is the exact experiment presented in the PDF I attached, so of course it looks a bit like I did the exact same thing, without putting anything mine into it.
In the end, I had to decide whether investigate the effect of temperature on the hydrolysis of ethyl benzoate or on the hydrolysis of ethyl acetate or whether to investigate the effect of a different functional group on the kinetics using the hydrolysis of the two esters at one temperature.
Since the data from the experiment with the ethyl acetate at 5 different temperatures seemed better, I decided to use them. I would therefore provide info about this experiment. If the writer thinks that he/she could write something better on one of the other 2 experiments, however, I can provide all the info and data I have about it.
Also, IMPORTANT NOTE, since my data are not very good, the writer might manipulate them a bit to make the whole work look better. Having said this, it is still a high school experiment, so perfect data would look fake. Moreover, the student is expected to comment on all the anomalies, sources of errors, inaccuracies and so on that might have affected the accuracy of the data.
The research question I thought of is: “How does temperature affect the chemical kinetics of the acidic hydrolysis of ethyl ethanoate?”. However, if the writer can think to a better one according to the IB criteria or if they need to change it for any reason, this can be done (I would like to be informed though).
I followed the same procedure as the one in the PDF I send and the same quantities and molarities of chemicals. I repeated the same reaction at 20,30,40,50 and 60 degrees Celsius.
At 20 and 30 C I titrated an aliquot every 10 minutes for 90 minutes, while at 40, 50 and 60 C I titrated one every 5 minutes for 45 minutes.
I attach an excel document in which, for each of the 5 temperatures, I wrote the time t and the amount of NaOH I used to titrate the 5 ml aliquot at that time.
The data should be presented in tables with units, accuracy of apparatus, ecc.
Then, in the Analysis, the data should be analysed. This includes creating graphs with trend lines and using the data to calculate:
– Order of reaction
– Rate of reaction
– Rate constant k
– My teacher also suggested trying to make an hypothesis about the mechanism of reaction based on the information I have.
You can use whatever method you prefer to calculate the above (as long as it is reasonable at my academic level) and not necessarily follow the calculations shown in the PDF I used.
I would like the work to look as different as possible from the PDF I send and to show critical and independent thinking, creativity and initiative.
Three more things.
1. In the document I sent the ester used is often referred to as ethyl acetate. However, as you will also read from the EE Criteria, all the science works for the IB need to be written using IUPAC names. So please, stick to the IUPAC nomenclature.
2. I cannot exceed the word limit of 4,000 words, excluding tables, graphs, calculations, bibliography, abstract, title and contents page.
3. Plagiarism is absolutely forbidden. The IB scans the students’ works through Turnitin and it has a very strict policy on plagiarism. If they detect any, I will fail the entire Diploma Programme and I will have to repeat it again. They do not distinguish between intentional and unintentional plagiarism, so if anything is taken from somewhere else and not referenced, I will automatically fail the entire IB Programme.
I hope I have included enough useful information to get started on my work. I would also like to communicate with the writer during the process of writing to provide further details, documents, info or to answer any question.
Last Completed Projects
| topic title | academic level | Writer | delivered |
|---|