A Collaborative Cocurricular Undergraduate Research Experience on Sustainable Materials: Analysis of Biochar Using the Boehm Titration and Spectroscopic Techniques

Abstract

The 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.