8 October 2020
Miss Jamie Gallagher, Head of Chemistry
Upper Sixth Former Alice received the top grade after completing an eight-session course on biofuels with the University of Bath over the summer. She used academic university papers to further her knowledge of the three generations of biofuel, which all use different feedstocks, edible, non-edible and algae, and completed the course by submitting a 3000-word report on her findings. For this Alice received an impressive A* grade.
In her report Alice discussed the major disadvantages about the usage of edible and non-edible feedstocks, most notably that land previously used for growing food is being used to grow crops for fuel instead. She also considered the extent to which biofuels using microalgae as a feedstock can replace petroleum. The report also included a literature review, a method for the production of biofuel and analysis of experimental results.
Alice thoroughly enjoyed the course, commenting “It was an excellent experience and I learnt many skills that I can use in the future”.