While many of us may be familiar with triathlons, a number of enigmatic Bundaberg high school students are more at home with volumetric and conical flasks, burettes and pipettes, phenolphthalein indicator solution, rubber stoppers and unknown chemical samples - stuff used in titrations.

Titrations are all about absolute precision in measuring, separating and analysing constituent chemicals from sometimes unknown samples.

Ben Lindsay, Stephanie Curran and Fynn Preuss with the trophy they won in the regional finals of the Australian National Chemical Analysis Competition held recently

A team of Year 11 students from Bundaberg State High School - Stephanie Curran, Fynn Preuss and Ben Lindsay - won the Regional Titration Competition and were one of 4 teams from the region invited to compete recently in the finals of the Australian National Chemical Analysis Competition - more fondly known as the National Titration Finals.

Science Engineering and Health staff Desirae Kirby and Helen Afflick supervised the Bundaberg group in the new laboratory facilities on campus.

Competitors participated in teams of 3, each member of the team analysing one unknown sample, after standardising a sodium hydroxide solution against a standard sample. 

A maximum of 3 hours were allowed for all work, including calculations.

For their efforts, the team received 2 gold and 1 silver medal for their individual accuracies in the National Final.

The students were presented with their trophy and medals at the Bundaberg State High Speech Night last Wednesday.

CQU Bundaberg hosts the Bundaberg State High School team competing at the recent Australian National Chemical Analysis Competition