New Perspectives in Science Education

Silica-based materials play an important role in various aspects of everday life such as coatings, filters or as anti-caking agent in foodstuff like baking powder or salt. Especially nanoporous silica have been considered for many technological applications such as HPLC, catalysis or storage.^[1,2] In our contribution, we address the meaning and versatility of silica materials in school chemistry education by presenting some basic and easy-to-implement model experiments, including areas like chromatography, separation and sorption.^[3-5] Additionally, we present the fabrication of artificial opals using self manufactured monodisperse spherical silica nanoparticles, which are ideally suited to give pupils an impression of the size of the nano dimension.^[6,7] Finally, on the example of (nano)porous silicones we will demonstrate possibilities to link current research in materials science to basic concepts in school chemistry education such as polar / non-polar interactions, hydrolysis and condensation.

References

[1] V. K. Saini, J. Pires, J. Chem. Educ. 2012, 89 (2), 276. [2] T. Wagner, S. Krotzky, A. Weiß, T. Sauerwald, C.-D. Kohl, J. Roggenbuck, M. Tiemann, Sensors 2011, 11, 3135. [3] W. Shi et al., J. Mater. Chem. 2011, 21 (39), 15567. [4] T. Wilke, S. Haffer, C. Weinberger, M. Tiemann, T. Wagner, T. Waitz, J. Nan. Ed. (accepted). [5] T. Wilke, S. Haffer, M. Tiemann, T. Waitz, Chemkon 2012, (19), 67. [6] S. Becht, S. Ernst, R. Bappert, C. Feldmann, Chem. Unserer Zeit 2010, 44 (1), 14. [7] F. Fleischhaker, R. Zentel, Chem. Unserer Zeit 2007, 41 (1), 38.