For high school students passionate about chemistry, hands-on projects are an excellent way to develop practical skills and learn to apply the concepts learned in school. Chemistry projects can deepen your understanding of basic concepts while promoting critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity. 

From detergents to environmental science and polymers, chemistry projects can cover a wide range of topics. When applying for a research program or internship, this experience can help you stand out among your peers. By building your research skills and demonstrating your interest in chemistry, these projects can also be useful for your college applications. 

In this blog, we've listed 10 interesting chemistry project ideas for high school students.

1. Synthesize a biofuel and explore its future potential

This project can be a great hands-on learning experiment about a promising field with great commercial applications. Algal Biofuels have emerged as a great alternative to the traditional vegetable oil-based ones, and you can find more about the research here.

What to do: You can conduct a reaction in your high school chemistry lab under supervision to better understand the basic chemistry behind making biofuels. You just need vegetable oil, methanol, and sodium hydroxide (NaOH). No advanced equipment is required for this project, and lab supplies like beakers and heating mantles should be available in your school chemistry lab. Mix the sodium hydroxide and methanol to form methoxide, which will react with the vegetable oil to produce 3 methyl esters of fatty acids, known as biodiesel in layman’s terms. 

Skill Sets: Basic lab etiquette, experience in handling chemicals, and analytical skills. This project requires observing a chemical reaction, and there is a slight chance of the formation of soap, which will impact the reaction's output. Thus measurement of raw materials and maintaining proper reaction conditions are critical.

Ideal for: This project can be conducted in your school’s chemistry lab, but you will need to follow proper lab etiquette and safety protocols as sodium hydroxide (NaOH) is corrosive. This experiment is ideal for students with a good understanding of chemistry who want to learn more about chemical reactions.

Drawbacks: The reaction is sensitive to conditions like temperature, stirring, and pH. If not maintained properly, the reaction won’t produce proper outputs. This can only be performed in a proper chemistry lab and requires equipment like glass beakers, pH meters, etc. 

Tips: This article is a great resource for understanding the chemistry and lab requirements for making biodiesel. Before beginning the reaction, you can theoretically calculate the amount of sodium hydroxide, so you don’t have to adjust pH levels later on in the reaction. 

2. Explore saponification, the science behind soap-making

Saponification is the process of making soap from fats or oils. The product formed during the saponification reaction is chemically soap, but it is not like the soap bars we use at home, which have additives like perfumes, color, and raw materials like moisturizers.

What to do: To begin, heat vegetable oil (such as olive oil or coconut oil) with a strong base like lye (sodium hydroxide). The oil is split into its constituent fatty acids, which react with lye to form soap, leaving aside glycerin as a side product. Keep mixing the solution slowly and once it has cooled down a bit, add essential oils or dried herbs for fragrance and color if you want to. For a long-lasting product, you need to let the soap cure for 2-4 weeks after you have molded it into your shape of choice. Test different combinations and explore the chemistry behind saponification. 

Skill Sets: Basic lab etiquette, experience in handling chemicals, and analytical skills. This project requires observing a chemical reaction and extracting a solid soap from liquid reactants, so measurement of raw materials and maintaining proper reaction conditions are critical.

Ideal for: This project can be conducted in your school’s chemistry lab, but you will need to follow proper lab etiquette and safety protocols, as sodium hydroxide (NaOH) is corrosive. So this is ideal for students with a good understanding of chemistry and who want to learn more about chemical reactions.

Drawbacks: The reaction is sensitive to conditions like temperature, stirring, and pH. If not maintained properly, the reaction won’t produce proper outputs. This can only be performed in a proper chemistry lab and requires equipment like glass beakers, pH meters, etc. 

Tips: Refer to this document to understand the process. You can use easily ‘saponifiable’ oils,  like coconut, palm, or cottonseed oils, which react quickly. 

3. Explore the applications of nanotechnology in containing oil spills

Oil spills can be extremely detrimental to the ocean environment and marine life. Cleaning up these spills requires a lot of time and resources, but these cleaning chemicals can lead to issues of their own. One of the most unique ways of containing oil spills in a water body is to use ferrofluids – fluids with magnetic nanoparticles suspended in them. This article from MIT can be a great source material to help you understand what ferrofluids are and how they can be used in oil spills. 

What to do: You can create a small-scale project to see ferrofluids in action. You can order any commercially available ferrofluids online or make one yourself! To begin the project, you’ll need a Neodymium block magnet, 60 mL Mineral oil, Petri dishes, transfer pipettes (1 mL and 3 mL), gloves, a graduated cylinder, food colors, and different types of vegetable oils. 

You’ll simulate a water body by taking 15 ml of water in a petri dish. Add green or blue color to it, so that once oil is added to it, the oil layer is clearly visible. Add 2-3 ml of oil in the dish, in the middle, followed by up to five drops of ferrofluid, across the dish. This will help in making the oil magnetic. Take the magnet and wrap it in plastic so that it can be used multiple times. Dip the magnet in the dish and run it slowly through the solution in a single motion twice. Some oil will stick to the magnet. 

After this, you need to take out the mixture from the dish to a graduated cylinder and visually observe the oil layer, which should float on top. You can repeat this for different amounts of oils and ferrofluid.

Skill Sets: Proper lab etiquette and attention to detail, as you will need to keep track of exactly the amount of oils and ferrofluid transferred through pipettes. 

Ideal for: As this is a project that can be done at home using household items and a few lab tools, this is a fun activity for students of all ages.

Drawbacks: The nature of oils spilled in the oceans is very different from the oils used in this experiment, and this might not be easily replicable at a large scale. 

Tips: Ferrofluids are messy and can stick to skin, clothes, and surfaces. Always store them in a closed container to avoid spillage.

4. Studying electrochemistry using penny battery 

While exploring advanced storage solutions can be a bit complicated, to understand the simple science behind cells, you can pursue a common experiment – creating a battery using coins!

What to do: To make a coin battery, stack zinc (like pennies or washers) and copper (like nickels) coins with saltwater and vinegar-soaked paper towels in between. The zinc and copper coins will form the electrode pair, and the wet paper towels will provide the electrolyte material (saltwater). Attach wires to the top and bottom coins to create terminals. 

This arrangement will generate a small amount of electricity through a redox (oxidation-reduction) reaction, as Zinc from the pennies loses electrons, to form Zn2+ ions and these electrons will travel through the soaked paper towels towards the copper end. Zinc is more reactive than copper, creating an electrical flow. The voltage or output can be increased by carefully placing these coins and pennies together, with the wet towels in between.

Skill Sets: Good handy skills to create a battery setup from just coins and wires.

Ideal for: As this is a project that can be done at home using household items and without the use of dangerous chemicals, this is a fun activity for students of all ages.

Drawbacks: Nothing as such. In this activity you will make a very low-voltage battery, so you can only light up LEDs. 

Tips: Read up about how you can set up the project here. You can analyze different energy storage options and compare and contrast different technologies' chemistries, performance, lifetime, cost, geographic and resource constraints, and more as a research project. To learn more about advanced storage solutions you can visit this site. 

5. Electroplating Copper on a brass key

This is another project which will help you explore the interaction of electricity and chemistry. Electroplating is an important phenomenon, with multiple real-life applications. In layman’s terms, this process utilizes power (electricity) to deposit a metal (copper) from an anode to another metal (brass or steel) which is at the cathode, in the presence of an electrolyte. 

What to do: You’ll need a brass key or even a stainless steel spoon, 6-9 V battery, a pure Copper strip, 50 mL of 2.0 mol/L CuSO4, insulated wire leads with alligator clips, copper wire, glass rod which will be used to suspend the key or the spoon in the electrolyte solution, and 100 ml glass beaker. 

You’ll start by noting the weight of the dried copper strip, which is the anode, and the brass key before the reaction, as this weight will be used to compare with weight post the reaction, which will help you understand the extent of electroplating. Connect the copper strip to the negative end of the battery through the wire, and the positive end of the insulated wire will be connected to the brass key. 

Both the copper strip and the key should be at least two-thirds immersed in the CuSO4 solution, which can be prepared by adding the CuSO4 crystals to hot water. Turn off the power supply and leave the setup undisturbed for 40 minutes. Take out the copper strip and key, dry them, and weigh them. The Copper ions are not actually moving from anode to cathode, but they are replenishing the Copper ions from CuSO4, which are moving towards the cathode and getting deposited as Copper metal on the brass key.

Skill Sets: Good handy skills to create a battery setup from just wires and a glass beaker.

Ideal for: All students who want to learn about a chemical phenomenon by visual observations.

Drawbacks: Preparation of the CuSO4 solution is the only key step here, and you only need to ensure proper mixing of the crystals. The solution should be clear and have a pool blue color.

Tips: Use a new battery if possible as the power source as you need to ensure a constant power supply. Use analytical grade CuSO4 for preparing the solution as impurities might impact the rate of reaction. Read more about the chemistry behind electroplating here. 

6. Determination of Vitamin C in different fruit juices

Vitamin C is water soluble and a necessary nutrient for the human body. As it is water soluble, its concentration can be easily determined using a simple titration. Interestingly, the scientific name of Vitamin C is ascorbic acid (technically, the L-enantiomer), which translates as “anti-scurvy” acid. In this titration, a redox (reduction/oxidation) reaction takes place, where vitamin C reduces the orange solution of iodine to the colorless iodide ion. 

What to do: You will need to prepare the sample solution either from packaged juice boxes (orange juice or grapefruit juice) or, if you are comparing Vitamin C from fresh fruits and vegetables, you’ll have to grind them to a pulp and extract the juice through a cheesecloth. You will also need an Iodine solution, a Starch indicator solution, and a solution containing Vitamin C, as prepared earlier. You will conduct a titration, with the endpoint being a change of solution color from orange to blue. You can check out the detailed explanation and step-by-step titration process here. 

Skill Sets: You need to have a good grasp of chemical concepts and have some experience with conducting titration. You also need basic lab etiquette as you need to be careful with weight measurements.

Ideal for: As this project requires a proper lab setup and a good understanding of chemical reactions, it is suitable for high school students with a strong academic record in chemistry.

Drawbacks: Ascorbic acid in orange juice or any fruit juice containing Vitamin C is susceptible to oxidation upon exposure to air, so if the samples are left out in the open for too long, it might affect the outcome of the titration.

Tips: Identification of the endpoint in this titration is significantly affected by the coloration of the sample solution used. If the solutions are colorless or are pale in color, there is no problem identifying the endpoint, and it is advised to carry out a “rough” titration to become familiar with any distinct color change that occurs at the endpoint (it may just be a darkening of the color). 

7. Measuring the solubility of different materials in water

Solubility is one of the chemical interactions that you can observe in your daily lives. When you add salt to water, all it takes is gentle stirring to dissolve it. The phenomena happening behind the scenes is an ionic reaction, and salt, NaCl, being an ionic compound splits into sodium and chloride ions and hence disappears. Butter or oils will not mix with water by the same principle as they are not ionic and can’t be broken down into water-soluble components.

What to do: You will take 100 ml of water in a glass beaker, add different materials to it, and test their solubility under different conditions. For this project, you will take three different compounds—Non-iodized table salt (NaCl), Epsom salts (MgSO4), and Sugar (sucrose, C12H22011). You will need to add the materials in small amounts and keep stirring the solution until the compounds are no longer soluble and precipitate out. Once you have determined the solubility at room temperature, you can increase the temperature to see how heat or kinetic energy impacts solubility. 

Skill Sets: Nothing as such apart from basic lab etiquette.

Ideal for: It is a visual project and just requires you to make timely observations, so this is suitable for all middle and high school students interested in basic chemical phenomena.

Drawbacks: As you will need to make visual observations to determine the solubility of compounds, the readings can vary depending on every time you repeat the experiment.

Tips: Always add the compounds to water in small increments as once the solubility limit is close, you might not be able to detect the maximum solubility point. 

8. Tarnished silver experiment

While silver is generally a very robust metal and does not corrode like how iron rusts, it is impacted by air that contains even a small amount of hydrogen sulfide. The silver forms a black layer of deposit on the surface, which is chemically silver sulfide. This process is known as tarnishing. There is a simple project that you can do to reverse some of the tarnishing with a few household chemicals. 

What to do: Using just a bowl, alu­minum foil, bak­ing soda, common salt, and wa­ter, you can get some of the silver’s shine back within minutes! Add two ta­ble­spoons of bak­ing soda and ta­ble salt to the bowl containing hot water for better dissolution. Place the silver item, wrapped neatly in aluminum foil, in this solution.

There is a very simple chemical reaction going on which helps get rid of the silver sulfide. It is converted back to metallic silver as the aluminum strips the sulfur away, forming aluminum sulfide. 

Skill Sets: Nothing apart from an interest in chemistry.

Ideal for: Students of all ages will find this project interesting.

Drawbacks: There is no way to quantify just how much silver sulfide is being converted to aluminum sulfide. You need to rely on visual observation to compare the appearance after the reaction.

Tips: You need to ensure complete dissolution of baking soda for the reaction to have the best results. 

9. Paper chromatography using inks

Chromatography is a technique used to separate a mixture or solution into its components. This is another project in which you will be able to make visual observations to determine the extent of a simple chemical process driving the separation. There are two phases involved in chromatography; the ‘stationary phase,’ which will be the paper in this project and the ‘mobile phase,’ which moves across the stationary phase, in this case the salt solution. 

The paper is composed of cellulose. Cellulose is a polymer of glucose. Due to its complex structure, cellulose is non-polar. However, there is a strong concentration of hydroxyl groups (–OH) in the glucose molecules, aligned outwards and able to interact with water. The hydroxyl groups can interact with hydrogen (–H) from water (mobile phase), thus creating a polar surface.

What to do: The paper, which is usually 2.5 x 10 cm in dimension, will need to be immersed in the mobile phase, which can be a salt solution or a solution with a mixture of IPA and water. You will create a small mark using a pen or a color extracted from food at 2.5 cm from the base of the chromatography paper and dip it in the solvent. Individual components of the sample solution are separated into bands of individual color which can be measured from the initial spot. 

Skill Sets: Basic lab etiquette and good observation skills

Ideal for: Students of all ages will find this project interesting

Drawbacks: Nothing as such

Tips: Avoid excessive handling of paper as any contaminants can interfere with the extraction process. 

10. Luminol, chemiluminescent glow experiment

You must be aware of exothermic reactions, which give out heat. A simple example of this is fire, in which an inflammable material reacts with oxygen to produce heat. There is another kind of reaction in which the reactants mix and give rise to illumination, which is known as chemiluminescence. The real-life application of this phenomenon is the use of Luminol at crime scenes by investigators. 

What to do: You will use household bleach and add it to water to make a 10% solution. Take 0.4 g luminol (3-aminophthalhydrazide) and add it to water and NaOH to make an alkaline solution. When the two solutions are mixed, an oxidation reaction occurs, and electrons in the luminol are excited to a higher energy state. As they return to their ground state, they release the energy in the form of a photon. The wavelength of the photon corresponds to the blue light that you see.

Skill Sets: Basic lab etiquette and understanding of chemical reactions. You also need to have some experience with conducting titration. 

Ideal for: Students of all ages will find this project interesting, though the use of some corrosive compounds makes it a bit dangerous for middle school students. 

Drawbacks: There are limited applications of this technology in daily life. Most of the ingredients are corrosive or irritants, so you might face some irritation in the eyes or skin if precautions are not taken.

Tips: You should always prepare the solutions fresh ahead of the project for the best results. 

One other option — the Lumiere Research Scholar Program

If you’re interested in pursuing independent research, you could also consider applying to one of the Lumiere Research Scholar Programs, selective online high school programs for students founded with researchers at Harvard and Oxford. Last year, we had over 4000 students apply for 500 spots in the program! You can find the application form here.

Also check out the Lumiere Research Inclusion Foundation, a non-profit research program for talented, low-income students. Last year, we had 150 students on full need-based financial aid!

Stephen is one of the founders of Lumiere and a Harvard College graduate. He founded Lumiere as a PhD student at Harvard Business School. Lumiere is a selective research program where students work 1-1 with a research mentor to develop an independent research paper.