A collaborative cocurricular undergraduate research experience on sustainable materials: analysis of biochar using the Boehm titration and spectroscopic techniques

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dc.contributor.authorBreen, Rachelen
dc.contributor.authorGoggin, Conoren
dc.contributor.authorHolmes, Justin D.en
dc.contributor.authorCollins, Gillianen
dc.contributor.funderScience Foundation Irelanden
dc.date.accessioned2025-05-07T13:30:09Z
dc.date.available2025-05-07T13:30:09Z
dc.date.issued2025-02-06en
dc.description.abstractThe use of renewable feedstocks such as biomass aligns with global priorities such as sustainability and climate change. Integrating these materials into experiments helps students understand the real-world relevance of chemistry to addressing environmental challenges. Here, we show that the use of biochar as a renewable feedstock provides an inquiry-based laboratory activity that gives students the opportunity to engage in an authentic investigative process. This activity describes a cocurricular summer workshop carried out with undergraduate students who had no prior research experience. The activity combined the Boehm titration as a chemical method for the analysis of biochar coupled with spectroscopic techniques. The workshop was designed to be collaborative in nature, where students collectively contributed to the overall experimental results and discussion. The motivation for the activity stems from a student undertaking a longer Undergraduate Research Experience (URE) in the form of a summer research placement and based on this work designing a research experience workshop that could be rolled out to benefit a larger number of students. We believe this approach of using longer or individual UREs to develop research-focused initiatives could be readily adopted by other UREs to promote and develop research skills.en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionPublished Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationBreen, R., Goggin, C., Holmes, J. D. and Collins, G. (2025) 'A collaborative cocurricular undergraduate research experience on sustainable materials: analysis of biochar using the Boehm titration and spectroscopic techniques', Journal of Chemical Education, 102(3), pp. 1323-1332. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01110en
dc.identifier.doi10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01110en
dc.identifier.eissn1938-1328en
dc.identifier.endpage1332en
dc.identifier.issn0021-9584en
dc.identifier.issued3en
dc.identifier.journaltitleJournal of Chemical Education, 102(3), pp. 1323-1332en
dc.identifier.startpage1323en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/17399
dc.identifier.volume102en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherAmerican Chemical Societyen
dc.relation.ispartofJournal of Chemical Educationen
dc.relation.projectinfo:eu-repo/grantAgreement/SFI/Research Centres Programme::Phase 2/12/RC/2278_P2/IE/AMBER_Phase 2/en
dc.rights© 2025, the Authors. Published by the American Chemical Society. This article is licensed under the CC-BY 4.0 license.en
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/en
dc.subjectBiocharen
dc.subjectBoehm titrationen
dc.subjectSpectroscopyen
dc.subjectSustainable materialsen
dc.subjectUndergraduate research experienceen
dc.subjectCocurricular activityen
dc.subjectResearch skillsen
dc.subjectInquiry-based learningen
dc.subjectSurface chemistryen
dc.titleA collaborative cocurricular undergraduate research experience on sustainable materials: analysis of biochar using the Boehm titration and spectroscopic techniquesen
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
dc.typejournal-articleen
oaire.citation.issue3en
oaire.citation.volume102en
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