A Tauranga Boys' College team has been awarded first place at the annual NZIC Analytical Chemistry Competition, held earlier this month.

The University of Waikato event, held on June 14 and sponsored by Hill Laboratories, challenged 92 enthusiastic Year 13 students to spend a day in the university's chemistry laboratories working on an experiment.

The task was to analyse the individual levels of zinc and sulphate ions in a sample of zinc sulphate, and to use these values to determine how many water molecules were associated with each zinc sulphate molecule.

Associate Professor of Chemistry Michele Prinsep says the competition is about getting the most accurate result.

'Students come up with an answer, which is compared with the actual answer of the analysis. So it's about being careful and methodical in practice, as well as testing their theory. Success depends on how good their experimental technique is.

'Tauranga Boys' College were pretty much bang on – almost perfect. They were the clear winners.”

Two other Tauranga teams were close behind, with Aquinas College coming in second place and Tauranga Girls' College taking third place.

There were 23 teams from 22 schools from across the Waikato and Bay of Plenty who entered the competition, with first place winning a trophy plus $240.

The second and third placed teams were awarded $200 and $160, respectively.