100 Chemistry Research Topics for High School Students

Meta description: 100 chemistry research topics and project ideas for high school students, each with the equipment, time, difficulty, and free tools you’ll need.

TL;DR

You’ll find 100 chemistry research topics below, each with the equipment it needs, how long it takes, how hard it is, and the free tool or dataset you’d use to run it. A topic list gives you a good question. Horizon gives you someone to turn it into research. You’ll work one-on-one with a PhD mentor, in labs like Formulation Chemistry, and finish with a research paper that’s yours to submit to journals or competitions. It’s fully online, and Labs run year-round.

What does chemistry research look like in high school?

Chemistry research asks how matter is built and how it changes: what something is made of, how its atoms are arranged, and what happens when it reacts with something else. In high school, that usually means picking one small system, changing one thing about it, and measuring what happens. The work is mostly careful measuring, graphing and explaining, not mixing mystery liquids. Chemists split the field into areas like organic, analytical, physical, environmental, materials and computational chemistry, plus biochemistry, and each one has questions you can take on.

Projects come in four rough shapes. Some are kitchen experiments with supplies from the grocery store. Some need school glassware and a teacher in the room. Some use lab data that scientists have already collected and posted in free government databases. And some run entirely on a laptop, with a simulation or a little code. All four count as research, as long as you ask a clear question and back up your answer with data.

What decides which topic fits you isn’t how impressive it sounds. It’s what you can get to (a kitchen, a school lab, or only a laptop), how much time you have, and whether someone can check your safety and your design. A one-week cabbage pH project you finish well will teach you more than a battery study you drop halfway through.

How do you know if a chemistry topic is doable?

The three parts of a doable topic

A good topic names one thing you’ll change, one thing you’ll measure, and a way to get that measurement. “How does temperature change how fast a glow stick fades?” passes all three. “Study polymers” fails all three, since it has no variable, no measurement and no finish line.

Red flags that sink a project

Watch for these before you commit:

• Instruments you can’t get to: NMR machines, mass spectrometers and HPLC systems live in university labs. If your question needs one, find the data online or pick a new question.
• Chemicals you shouldn’t handle: Strong acids, heavy metals and anything that gives off toxic gas are off the table without a trained supervisor. Your teacher decides what’s safe, not a video.
• No number at the end: “Which soap is better?” is an opinion. “Which soap keeps oil and water mixed the longest, in seconds?” is a measurement.
• Too big: “Climate change chemistry” is a career. “Has the pH of one river changed since 2005?” is a project.
• Only one run: You need at least three trials of each condition to know your result isn’t luck.

The three tiers on this list

Each topic carries a “What you need” label, so you can tell right away whether it fits your situation.

• No lab needed: You’ll work with free databases, simulations or published data. All you need is a laptop. 37 topics.
• Home setup: Kitchen and drugstore supplies, plus maybe a cheap tool like a digital thermometer or a kitchen scale. 54 topics.
• School lab: You need lab glassware or a reagent your school has, and a teacher supervising. 9 topics.

Staying safe at home and at school

If you run anything with your hands, use the American Chemical Society’s RAMP method: recognize the hazards, assess the risks, minimize the risks, and prepare for emergencies. It takes five minutes, and it’s the same habit working chemists use every day. Write your RAMP notes down, since science fairs often ask to see your safety plan.

Someone to check your design

Here’s the part most students skip. The hardest step isn’t picking a topic, it’s designing a test that actually answers it. Did you control the right things? Are three trials enough? Is your measurement precise enough to see a difference?

A teacher can help with this, and so can a mentor. At Horizon, you work one-on-one with a PhD or postdoc scholar who checks your question, your method and your analysis as you go. In the Formulation Chemistry lab, students research how chemistry shapes everyday products, from plant-based plastics to non-toxic paints to removing pollutants from water. Several topics on this list (filters, soaps, bioplastics, coatings) sit right in that territory, so they make strong starting points if you want to go further.

How do you choose a chemistry research topic?

Start with what you already like

Pick the area you’d read about for fun, not the one that sounds most impressive. A simple project you care about will beat a complicated one you abandon in week two. If cooking is your thing, start in the kitchen. If you’re thinking about medicine, start with biochemistry.

Check what you can get to

Be honest about your setup. Do you have a kitchen and a free weekend? A chemistry teacher who’ll stay after school? Or just a laptop? Every topic on this list tells you which one it needs, so match that to your life before you fall for an idea.

Make it smaller

Once you’ve picked a topic, shrink it. “Do air pollution levels drop on weekends?” is a good start. “Do nitrogen dioxide levels drop on Sundays in Chicago?” is a question you can actually answer in a month. If you’re not sure how to narrow yours, read Horizon’s guide on how to choose a research topic as a high school student, which walks through the full process step by step. For more ways to find a project or a lab, see how to get research opportunities in high school.

What are chemists researching right now?

A topic that connects to current research is more interesting to write about, and it’s easier to find recent papers to compare your results with. Here are four big areas, and the topics on this list that tie into each one.

Metal-organic frameworks

These are crystals full of tiny holes that can trap gases, and their inventors won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. They’re being used to pull carbon dioxide out of the air and even collect water from desert air. See topic 81.

Forever chemicals

PFAS are long-lasting chemicals that break down very slowly, so they build up in water and soil. Figuring out which ones stick around longest is a question you can study with free EPA data. See topic 45.

Better batteries

Chemists are hunting for battery materials that store more energy and use less rare metal. You can compare real battery materials with a free database, or build your own fruit battery at home. See topics 80 and 83.

Plastics that break down

Plant-based and biodegradable plastics are a huge research area. Testing whether they work as promised is a project you can run with kitchen supplies. See topics 46 and 79.

Which chemistry topics work best for science fairs?

What judges look for

Judges want a clear question, a controlled test and data that answers it. The best science fair topics change one variable, measure one result, and repeat each condition at least three times. Topics in the home setup and school lab tiers are usually the easiest to show on a board, since you’ll have your own photos and graphs.

Which ISEF category your project belongs in

If you’re aiming for the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), know your category before you start. ISEF’s Chemistry category covers matter “not involving biochemical systems,” with subcategories for analytical, computational, environmental, inorganic, materials, organic and physical chemistry. Projects about chemistry inside living things go to the separate Biochemistry category instead. So most topics in the biochemistry and medicine group belong there.

Don’t skip the laptop projects

Computational chemistry is its own ISEF subcategory, and a well-built data project can be just as strong as a bench experiment. What matters is the question and the analysis, not whether you wore goggles. For more places to enter your work, see Horizon’s roundup of research competitions for high school students and the guide to turning your paper into a competition submission.

Want ideas outside chemistry? Horizon also has lists of biology research topics, 200 STEM research topics, interdisciplinary projects, disease research project ideas and research topics across every subject.

Chemistry projects you can do at home with kitchen supplies

These are the easiest topics to start this week. Everything runs on supplies you probably already own, and the chemistry underneath is more interesting than it looks. They’re also the best place to practice running clean trials before you try something harder.

1. Does red cabbage juice read pH as well as store-bought test strips?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Your phone camera and ImageJ (free) to measure color

Boil chopped red cabbage, strain the purple juice, and add it to household liquids like vinegar, lemon juice, baking soda water and soapy water. Then test each liquid with pH strips. Photograph every sample against white paper and use ImageJ to turn each color into numbers.

Can you build a color chart from the cabbage that matches the strips? The purple comes from pigments called anthocyanins, which change shape (and color) as the liquid gets more acidic or basic.

Who is it right for? Anyone doing their very first chemistry project.

2. How does water temperature change how fast an antacid tablet dissolves?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: A digital kitchen thermometer, your phone’s stopwatch, and Google Sheets

Drop the same antacid tablet into water at five temperatures, from ice cold to hot tap water. Time how long the fizzing lasts. Run each temperature three times.

You’ll end up with one of the cleanest graphs on this list. Plot dissolving time against temperature and see whether the curve is a straight line or something steeper.

Who is it right for? Students who want a simple, reliable science fair project.

3. Which kitchen ingredient keeps a cut apple from browning the longest?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Your phone camera and ImageJ

Slice an apple and treat the pieces with lemon juice, salt water, honey water, plain water, or nothing at all. Photograph them every hour under the same light. ImageJ can measure how dark each slice gets over time, so you’re not just eyeballing it.

Browning happens when an enzyme in the apple reacts with oxygen. Acids and vitamin C slow it down. But which works best, and for how long?

Who is it right for? Anyone who wants an easy project with a clear before and after.

4. Does salt or sugar lower water’s freezing point more?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: A digital thermometer, your freezer, and PubChem for molar masses

Mix salt water and sugar water at the same concentrations and record the temperature as each one freezes. Then do it again, but this time match the number of molecules instead of the number of grams. PubChem gives you the molar masses you’ll need.

Here’s the twist. Salt splits into two particles in water while sugar stays whole, so the results change depending on how you measure “the same amount.”

Who is it right for? Students who like testing a textbook rule to see if it holds up.

5. How do baking soda and baking powder change how high a muffin rises?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: A kitchen scale, a ruler, and Google Sheets

Bake small batches of the same muffin recipe with baking soda, baking powder, both, or neither. Measure the height of each muffin and photograph a cut slice to compare bubble size.

Both make carbon dioxide gas, but in different ways: baking soda needs an acid in the batter, while baking powder brings its own. And yes, you get to eat your data.

Who is it right for? Bakers who want a project they can finish in a weekend.

6. Does the type of milk change how much curd you get when you add vinegar?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: A kitchen scale, coffee filters, and Google Sheets

Warm 100 mL each of whole, 2%, skim and lactose-free milk, then stir in the same amount of vinegar. Strain the curds through coffee filters and weigh them. Try plant milks too.

The curd is mostly a protein called casein, which clumps when the milk gets acidic enough. Do plant milks behave the same way? Not always, and figuring out why is the interesting part.

Who is it right for? Students curious about how proteins behave.

7. How much vitamin C is left in orange juice after a week in the fridge?

What you need: School lab
Time: 2 to 4 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: A titration setup at school and USDA FoodData Central for starting values

With your teacher, use a vitamin C titration to measure the vitamin C in fresh juice. Then test the same juice every two days, open and sealed, in and out of the fridge. FoodData Central gives you a reference value to compare your first reading against.

Vitamin C breaks down when it meets oxygen, heat and light. Your job is to find out which matters most.

Who is it right for? Students who want to learn a real lab technique.

8. Which stain remover breaks down a tomato sauce stain fastest?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Your phone camera and ImageJ

Stain identical cotton squares with tomato sauce. Treat them with plain water, regular detergent, an enzyme detergent and a stain spray, then wash each one the same way. Photograph them and use ImageJ to measure how much color is left.

Enzyme detergents use proteins that break apart stains. Do they really beat the others, and does water temperature change the answer?

Who is it right for? Anyone who wants a practical project with results you can see.

9. Does steeping time change how dark and acidic tea gets?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Black tea bags, pH strips, your phone camera, and ImageJ

Steep identical tea bags in the same amount of hot water for 1, 2, 4, 6 and 10 minutes. Photograph each cup against white paper and test its pH. Plot color against steeping time and look for the point where the tea stops getting darker.

Tea gets its color and bitter bite from compounds called tannins. Do they keep coming out the longer you wait, or does the leaf run out?

Who is it right for? Tea drinkers who want a quick first project.

10. Which kitchen ingredient melts ice the fastest?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Same-size ice cubes, table salt, rock salt, Epsom salt, sugar, a kitchen scale, and Google Sheets

Sprinkle the same mass of each ingredient on identical ice cubes. After ten minutes, pour off and weigh the meltwater. Run each ingredient three times so one odd cube doesn’t decide the winner.

Anything that dissolves in the thin layer of water on the ice lowers its freezing point. The ingredient that makes the most dissolved particles per gram should win. Does it?

Who is it right for? Students who live somewhere with icy winters.

11. How does sugar concentration change how big rock candy crystals grow?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 2 to 3 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Sugar, glass jars, cotton string, a kitchen scale, a ruler, and your phone camera

With an adult’s help, dissolve different amounts of sugar in hot water and pour each solution into its own jar with a string hanging in it. Leave the jars somewhere still for a week. Weigh the crystals on each string and photograph their shapes.

Hot water can hold more sugar than cold water. As it cools, the extra sugar has to go somewhere, and it builds crystals. Which starting amount grows the biggest ones?

Who is it right for? Patient beginners who like a project they can watch change.

12. Does the type of flour change how much gluten you can wash out of dough?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Bread flour, all-purpose flour, cake flour, a kitchen scale, and USDA FoodData Central for protein values

Make a small ball of dough from 100 g of each flour. Rinse each ball under cold water until the starch washes away and only a stretchy lump is left. That lump is gluten, so weigh it and compare it with the protein on each flour’s label.

Gluten forms when two proteins in flour link up in water. Does more protein on the label always mean more gluten in your hand?

Who is it right for? Bakers curious about why bread and cake feel so different.

13. Does fizzy water lose its bubbles faster when it’s warm or cold?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Small bottles of sparkling water, a kitchen scale that reads to 0.01 g, a thermometer, and Google Sheets

Open bottles that have sat in the fridge, at room temperature and in warm water. Weigh each open bottle every 30 minutes. The mass drops as carbon dioxide escapes, so your scale is measuring the gas leaving.

Gases dissolve better in cold water than warm water, which is the opposite of sugar. Can you show that with your own numbers?

Who is it right for? Students who want a clean graph from a simple setup.

Chemistry research topics on reaction speed and energy

This group is about how fast reactions happen and how much heat they give off or take in. That’s physical chemistry, and it’s where your graphing skills really pay off. Most of these give you a clean curve you can explain with one equation. If you like the physics side of chemistry, Horizon’s list of physics research opportunities is worth a look too.

14. How does hydrogen peroxide concentration change how fast yeast makes oxygen?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: 3% drugstore hydrogen peroxide, dry yeast, dish soap, a ruler, and Google Sheets

Dilute 3% peroxide to several weaker strengths. Add a drop of dish soap and a scoop of yeast, then measure how tall the foam gets in 30 seconds. Film it so you can check your readings.

Yeast contains an enzyme called catalase that splits peroxide into water and oxygen. Does the reaction keep speeding up as you add more peroxide, or does it level off?

Who is it right for? Students who want the classic “elephant toothpaste” demo turned into real data.

15. Does crushing chalk make it react faster with vinegar?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Sidewalk chalk, vinegar, and a kitchen scale that reads to 0.01 g

Put whole, broken and powdered chalk into the same amount of vinegar. Weigh each cup every minute. The mass drops as carbon dioxide gas escapes, so you’re measuring the reaction as it happens.

Smaller pieces mean more surface for the acid to attack. But how much faster? That’s what your graph will show.

Who is it right for? Anyone who wants to measure a reaction rate without special equipment.

16. Can you find a reaction’s activation energy using a simulation?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: The free PhET “Reactions & Rates” simulation and Google Sheets

Run the simulation at several temperatures and count how many reactions happen in a set time. Then make an Arrhenius plot: the natural log of the rate against one over temperature. The slope gives you the activation energy.

It sounds hard. It’s mostly careful counting and one formula. And it’s the same math chemists use on real reactions.

Who is it right for? Students who like math and want a no-lab project.

17. How much heat do different hand warmer brands give off, and for how long?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Air-activated hand warmers, a digital thermometer, and Google Sheets

Activate warmers from different brands, wrap each one around a thermometer in the same way, and record the temperature every ten minutes until they cool down. Compare peak heat and total time.

These warmers work by rusting iron, very fast. Rusting gives off heat. Which brand gets you the most warmth for your money?

Who is it right for? Students who want an easy project with a surprising bit of chemistry behind it.

18. Does dissolving different salts make water hotter or colder?

What you need: School lab
Time: 2 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: A foam-cup calorimeter, a digital thermometer, school salts, and PubChem for molar masses

With your teacher, dissolve equal amounts of salts like calcium chloride, potassium chloride and sodium bicarbonate in water. Track the temperature change. Then use your data to calculate the heat released or absorbed per mole.

Some salts warm the water up. Others cool it down. So why would anything dissolve if it makes the water colder? That question leads to one of the most interesting ideas in chemistry.

Who is it right for? Students taking chemistry who want to go past the textbook.

19. How does temperature change how much sugar water can hold?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: A kitchen scale, a thermometer, and Google Sheets

Heat 100 mL of water to four different temperatures. Stir in sugar a few grams at a time until no more dissolves. Weigh how much went in at each temperature and plot a solubility curve.

Then compare your curve with a published one. How close did you get, and what explains the gap?

Who is it right for? Beginners who want practice with careful measurement.

20. Do glow sticks glow longer when they’re hot or cold?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Glow sticks, ice water and warm water, and the free phyphox app to use your phone’s light sensor

Snap glow sticks and put them in ice water, room-temperature water and warm water. Use phyphox to measure brightness every 15 minutes in a dark room.

Warm sticks shine brighter but fade faster. Cold sticks last longer but look dim. You’re watching reaction rate and temperature trade off in real time. And you can put a number on the trade.

Who is it right for? Anyone who wants a fun project with clean data.

21. How well does the gas law predict a balloon’s size in the freezer?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Balloons, a flexible tape measure, a thermometer, and Google Sheets

Measure a balloon’s circumference at room temperature, in the fridge and in the freezer. Use Charles’s law to predict how big it should be at each temperature, then compare.

Your predictions won’t match perfectly. The rubber pushes back, and that’s part of what you’ll explain.

Who is it right for? Students who like testing a formula against reality.

22. How does temperature change how fast vinegar and baking soda make gas?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Vinegar, baking soda, small bottles, balloons, a flexible tape measure, and a thermometer

Warm or chill the vinegar to four temperatures. Add the same scoop of baking soda to each bottle and quickly stretch a balloon over the top. Measure the balloon’s size every 15 seconds until it stops growing.

You’ll get two results from one test: how fast the gas forms, and how much forms in total. Does temperature change both, or just one?

Who is it right for? Beginners who want to turn a classic demo into data.

23. How much energy is stored in different snack foods?

What you need: School lab
Time: 2 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: Your school’s calorimetry setup and USDA FoodData Central to compare Calorie values

With your teacher, burn small, weighed samples of snacks like popcorn, crackers and cereal under a can of water. Measure how much the water heats up. Use that temperature rise to calculate the energy in each gram of food.

Your numbers will come out lower than the labels. A lot of the heat escapes into the room. Explaining where it went is the most important part of your write-up.

Who is it right for? Students interested in nutrition and energy.

24. Do gummy bears swell more in plain water, salt water or sugar water?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Gummy bears, cups, salt, sugar, a kitchen scale, and Google Sheets

Weigh gummy bears, then soak them in plain water and in salt and sugar solutions of different strengths. Weigh them again every few hours for a day. Some will swell, and some might shrink, depending on what’s in the water.

Water moves toward wherever there’s more stuff dissolved. That’s called osmosis. Can you find the solution where a gummy bear stays the same size?

Who is it right for? Anyone who wants a fun, low-cost project.

25. Which instant cold pack gets coldest, and for how long?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Instant cold packs from two or three brands, a digital thermometer, and Google Sheets

Activate each pack the way its label says, wrap it around a thermometer, and record the temperature every five minutes. Don’t cut the packs open. Compare how cold each one gets and how long it stays below a set temperature.

These packs work by dissolving a solid that pulls in heat as it dissolves. Pair this with topic 17 for the hot side of the same idea.

Who is it right for? Students who want an easy project about energy.

26. Can candy coins model radioactive half-life?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: 100 coated candies printed on one side (or coins), a cup, and Google Sheets

Shake all 100 candies in a cup and dump them out. Remove every one that lands printed side up, count what’s left, and repeat. Plot the number left after each shake and compare it with a half-life curve.

Real radioactive atoms decay at random too, which is why this model works. How close does your curve get to the math, and does it get closer if you start with more candies?

Who is it right for? Students who like math and want a no-mess project.

Analytical chemistry projects that measure what’s in things

Analytical chemists figure out what’s in a sample and how much. These topics teach you calibration, error and careful comparison, which are skills every science judge looks for. They’re also what make the methods section of a research paper convincing.

27. Can a smartphone camera measure how much dye is in a drink?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 2 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: Food coloring, measuring spoons, ImageJ, and the free PhET “Beer’s Law Lab” to learn the idea first

Make a set of food dye solutions with known strengths. Photograph each one in the same cup and light. Use ImageJ to read the color values and build a calibration line. Then test a “mystery” drink and estimate its dye content.

Labs do this with an instrument called a spectrophotometer. You’re building a cheap version with your phone. Your job is to figure out where it breaks down.

Who is it right for? Students who like building tools and testing their limits.

28. Which brand of gum has the most sugar?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: A kitchen scale that reads to 0.01 g and USDA FoodData Central to check labels

Weigh a piece of gum, chew it for ten minutes, let it dry, and weigh it again. The lost mass is mostly sugar that dissolved in your saliva. Test several brands, including sugar-free ones.

Then compare your numbers with the label and FoodData Central. Possibly the only project where chewing counts as lab work.

Who is it right for? Beginners who want a quick, low-cost project.

29. How hard is your tap water compared with official measurements?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 2 to 3 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: Water hardness test strips and the Water Quality Portal run by USGS and EPA

Test tap water from home, school and friends’ houses with hardness strips. Then look up official hardness readings for your area on the Water Quality Portal. Do they match?

Hard water carries dissolved calcium and magnesium, often from the rock under your town. Can you link your results to local geology?

Who is it right for? Students who want to connect a home test with public data.

30. Can paper chromatography tell food dyes apart?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Coffee filters, salt water, colored candies, and PubChem to look up dye structures

Dot the coating from colored candies onto coffee filter strips and let salt water creep up the paper. Different dyes travel different distances. Measure each one and calculate its Rf value (how far the dye moved compared with the water).

Do candies with “natural colors” on the label separate differently from ones using dyes like Red 40? Look up the structures and explain the pattern.

Who is it right for? Beginners who want a classic technique with a twist.

31. Can you identify a mystery compound from its infrared spectrum?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: The free Spectral Database for Organic Compounds and the NIST Chemistry WebBook

Pull infrared spectra for ten common compounds, like ethanol, acetone and acetic acid. Learn the key peaks: a broad bump for O-H, a sharp spike for C=O. Then have a friend pick spectra you haven’t seen, and try to name the compounds.

This is how chemists identify unknowns every day. Track how often you get it right and which groups are hardest to tell apart.

Who is it right for? Puzzle lovers with no lab access.

32. Do molecules with the same formula break apart differently in a mass spectrometer?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 to 3 weeks
Difficulty: Advanced
Tools or data: Mass spectra from the NIST Chemistry WebBook

Pick pairs of isomers, which are molecules with the same atoms arranged differently, like 1-propanol and 2-propanol. Compare their mass spectra. Which fragments show up in one but not the other?

Then explain why, by working out which bonds break most easily. It’s detective work with real lab data.

Who is it right for? Advanced students who’ve finished a chemistry course.

33. How accurate are pool test kits compared with a lab pH meter?

What you need: School lab
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Pool test strips, a drop test kit, your school’s pH meter, and Google Sheets

With your teacher, prepare buffer solutions of known pH. Test each one with strips, drops and the meter. Record how far each method lands from the true value.

The answer matters to anyone with a pool, and nobody tests it carefully. You’ll learn error analysis along the way.

Who is it right for? Students who want a practical project with a clear answer.

34. How much acid is really in different vinegars?

What you need: School lab
Time: 2 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: A school titration setup with sodium hydroxide and indicator, and PubChem for acetic acid data

With your teacher, titrate white, apple cider, rice and balsamic vinegars. Calculate the percentage of acetic acid in each, then check it against the label, which usually says 5% acidity. Is the label right?

Run each vinegar three times. If your results disagree, figure out whether it’s the vinegar or your technique.

Who is it right for? Students who want to master titration, a skill used in almost every chemistry lab.

35. Can you measure the sugar in soda just by weighing it?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: A kitchen scale that reads to 0.01 g, a measuring cylinder or syringe, sugar, and Google Sheets

Make sugar water at several known strengths and weigh exactly 100 mL of each. Plot mass against sugar content to build a calibration line. Then weigh 100 mL of flat soda and use your line to estimate its sugar.

Test a diet soda as a control. If your method works, it should read close to zero. Then compare your regular soda results with the labels.

Who is it right for? Students who want to learn calibration without special equipment.

36. Which breakfast cereal has the most iron you can pull out with a magnet?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Iron-fortified cereals, a strong magnet in a plastic bag, zip-top bags, water, and your phone camera

Crush the same amount of each cereal in a bag of water. Stir the slurry with the bagged magnet for five minutes. Tiny black specks of iron will stick to the bag, and you can photograph and compare them.

Many cereals add iron as tiny particles of the metal itself. Does the brand with the most iron on its label give you the most specks?

Who is it right for? Beginners who want a surprising result.

37. Does the pH of rain change from one storm to the next?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 4 to 8 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: A clean plastic container, pH strips or a low-cost pH meter, and Google Sheets

Collect rain from every storm for a month or two in a clean container placed away from roofs and trees. Test its pH right away. Record the weather, wind direction and how long since the last storm alongside each reading.

Normal rain is a little acidic, since it absorbs carbon dioxide from the air. Does yours change with the wind or the season?

Who is it right for? Students who want a long-running project with real local data.

38. How much salt is really in your favorite snacks?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 2 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: A low-cost TDS or conductivity meter, table salt, a kitchen scale, and USDA FoodData Central

Make salt solutions at known strengths and measure their conductivity to build a calibration line. Then soak a weighed handful of chips or pretzels in water and measure that. Use your line to estimate the salt in each snack, then check it against the label.

Other things in food can conduct electricity too. Figuring out how much they throw off your reading is a big part of the project.

Who is it right for? Students interested in food and nutrition labels.

39. Can thin-layer chromatography tell real vanilla from imitation?

What you need: School lab
Time: 2 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: TLC plates and a solvent your teacher approves, real and imitation vanilla, and PubChem for vanillin’s structure

With your teacher, spot real and imitation vanilla extract on TLC plates and run them side by side. Both should show vanillin, but real vanilla usually carries many more compounds. Count and measure the spots.

Can you spot a cheaper extract mixed into a “pure” one? Try blending the two and see if your plates can tell.

Who is it right for? Students who like food science and detective work.

Environmental chemistry research topics

Environmental chemistry tracks what’s in our water, air and soil, and where it came from. Many of these topics use free government data, so you can study your own town without leaving your desk. If you’d like to do this kind of work inside a structured program, see Horizon’s list of natural sciences research programs.

40. Has the pH of a river near you changed over the last 20 years?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 to 4 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: The Water Quality Portal and Google Sheets

Find a monitoring site on a river or lake near you and download its pH records. Plot them over time and look for a trend. Do the seasons matter?

You’re doing the same analysis environmental scientists do, with the same data. Then look for causes, since changes in rain, farming or a factory upstream can all shift pH.

Who is it right for? Students who care about their local environment.

41. Does air pollution drop on weekends in your city?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 to 3 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: OpenAQ for free air quality data

Pull a year of nitrogen dioxide readings for your city. Nitrogen dioxide comes largely from car and truck exhaust. Compare weekday and weekend averages.

Then check ozone. You might expect it to drop too. In some cities it doesn’t, and explaining why takes some real chemistry.

Who is it right for? Students interested in air quality or city planning.

42. Which homemade filter removes the most dye from water?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Aquarium activated charcoal, sand, coffee filters, a pitcher filter, and ImageJ

Make dyed water and pour it through each filter. Photograph the water before and after, and use ImageJ to measure how much color is gone. Then try layering filters.

Activated charcoal works by adsorption, which means the dye sticks to its huge surface area. How much water can it clean before it’s full?

Who is it right for? Students interested in clean water.

43. How does road salt change the water running into storm drains?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 2 to 4 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: A low-cost TDS or conductivity meter and the Water Quality Portal

In winter, collect meltwater from salted roads, sidewalks and an unsalted lawn. Measure conductivity, which rises when more salt is dissolved. If you don’t get snow, make salt solutions that match published road-salt levels.

Then pull conductivity data for a nearby stream from the Water Quality Portal. Does it spike in winter months?

Who is it right for? Students who live somewhere with snowy winters.

44. How fast does acid dissolve seashells?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 2 to 3 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Seashells, vinegar at several dilutions, and a kitchen scale that reads to 0.01 g

Soak shells in vinegar at different strengths and weigh them every two days. Shells are mostly calcium carbonate, which dissolves in acid.

This is a model for ocean acidification, not a copy of it, since your vinegar is far more acidic than any ocean. Being honest about that gap makes your project stronger, not weaker. Say it plainly in your write-up.

Who is it right for? Students interested in marine life and climate.

45. Why do some PFAS “forever chemicals” last longer than others?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 3 to 4 weeks
Difficulty: Advanced
Tools or data: The EPA CompTox Chemicals Dashboard and PubChem

Choose ten PFAS compounds and look up their structures and properties. Compare chain length, the groups at the end of the chain, and how each one is predicted to move through water and soil.

Be careful to separate measured values from computer predictions. CompTox labels both, and mixing them up is the most common mistake in this kind of project.

Who is it right for? Students interested in environmental policy and public health.

46. Do “biodegradable” bags really break down faster in soil?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 4 to 8 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Squares cut from regular, biodegradable and compostable bags, garden soil, a kitchen scale, and your phone camera

Bury equal squares of each bag type in pots of moist soil. Dig them up every week, rinse, dry, weigh and photograph them, then bury them again.

You might see very little change in two months. That’s still a result, and an important one, since it tells you what the label really means. Check the fine print on each package for how it’s supposed to break down.

Who is it right for? Patient students who want a long-running project.

47. How do sunscreen ingredients banned in Hawaii compare with the ones still allowed?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 to 3 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: PubChem and the EPA CompTox Chemicals Dashboard

Hawaii banned sunscreens containing oxybenzone and octinoxate to protect coral reefs. Look up their structures and properties, then compare them with mineral filters like zinc oxide and titanium dioxide.

How do they block UV light differently? Which properties might explain why one type raises more concern in ocean water? Stick to what the data and published studies show.

Who is it right for? Students who love the ocean and like reading research papers.

48. Do nitrate levels in streams rise after fertilizer season?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 to 3 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: The Water Quality Portal and Google Sheets

Pick a stream in a farming area and download several years of nitrate readings. Group them by month. Do they climb in spring and early summer?

Then compare with a stream in a city or forest. Nitrate from fertilizer can wash into water and feed algae blooms downstream, so this question matters well beyond the stream itself.

Who is it right for? Students from rural areas or anyone interested in farming.

49. How did wildfire smoke change the air where you live?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 to 3 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: OpenAQ for free air quality data

Pick a week when wildfire smoke reached your area and pull fine particle (PM2.5) readings for the month around it. Compare smoky days with clear days. How high did levels go, and how long did they take to come back down?

Then compare monitors in different parts of your region. Did some neighborhoods get hit harder than others?

Who is it right for? Students who live in areas affected by wildfire smoke.

50. How fast is carbon dioxide rising, and why does it drop every summer?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Carbon dioxide records from the NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory and Google Sheets

Download the monthly carbon dioxide record from Mauna Loa in Hawaii. Calculate how much it rose each year and graph the yearly rise. Then zoom in on a single year and explain the small dip that shows up every northern summer.

Plants pull carbon dioxide out of the air as they grow. How big is that seasonal swing compared with the yearly rise?

Who is it right for? Students interested in climate change who want to work with famous data.

51. Do coffee grounds, eggshells or compost change soil pH the most?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 3 to 4 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Garden soil, a soil pH test kit, and used coffee grounds, crushed eggshells and compost

Mix each material into pots of the same soil at two or three amounts, and keep one pot plain. Water them the same way. Test each pot’s pH every week for a month.

Gardening advice says coffee grounds make soil more acidic and eggshells do the opposite. Does your data agree?

Who is it right for? Students who garden or want to.

52. Does a river’s chemistry change after it flows past a city?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 to 4 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: The Water Quality Portal and Google Sheets

Find monitoring sites on the same river above and below a city. Pull dissolved oxygen, nitrate and conductivity readings for both. Compare the two sites year by year.

What changes the most as the river passes through? Look for treatment plants, farms or factories between the two sites that could explain it.

Who is it right for? Students interested in water and how cities affect it.

53. Does a pitcher filter really remove chlorine from tap water?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Chlorine test strips (sold for pools or aquariums), a pitcher filter, and Google Sheets

Test your tap water for chlorine, then test it again after it passes through the filter. Repeat across several days. Track whether the filter works as well after a few weeks as it did on day one.

Also test tap water that’s been left out overnight in an open glass. Some chlorine escapes into the air on its own. How does that compare with the filter?

Who is it right for? Students who want a practical answer to an everyday question.

Organic chemistry research topics for high school students

Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon. It explains why things smell, taste and dissolve the way they do. Most of these topics need only free molecule viewers and databases. If you’d like some structured teaching first, many online chemistry summer programs cover organic chemistry.

54. Why do mirror-image molecules sometimes smell completely different?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: PubChem and MolView for 3D models

Carvone comes in two mirror-image forms, and they smell nothing alike. One smells like spearmint, while the other smells like caraway seeds. Build both in MolView and rotate them until you see the difference.

Then search PubChem for other mirror-image pairs and check whether their listed smells or effects differ. Why would your nose care which way a molecule is twisted?

Who is it right for? Students who like 3D thinking.

55. Can you predict boiling points from a molecule’s shape?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 to 3 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: Boiling point data from the NIST Chemistry WebBook and Google Sheets

Collect boiling points for straight-chain and branched hydrocarbons with the same number of carbons. Pentane and neopentane, for example, have the same formula but boil at very different temperatures.

Plot boiling point against carbon number, then against branching. Can you write a simple rule that predicts a boiling point you haven’t looked up yet? Test it on three compounds you left out of your graph.

Who is it right for? Students who like finding patterns in data.

56. How does chain length change how well an alcohol mixes with water?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Solubility data from PubChem

Look up water solubility for alcohols from methanol (one carbon) to octanol (eight carbons). Graph it. Where does the drop happen?

Each alcohol has one water-loving end and a carbon tail that avoids water. As the tail grows, it wins. Explain your graph using that tug-of-war.

Who is it right for? Beginners who want a no-lab project with a clear story.

57. Which way does a ring-shaped molecule prefer to sit?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 weeks
Difficulty: Advanced
Tools or data: Avogadro, a free molecule editor

Build methylcyclohexane in Avogadro. Put the methyl group in two positions on the ring, called axial and equatorial, and use the built-in energy tool to compare them. Then try bigger groups.

Compare your energy gaps with the values in an organic chemistry textbook. How close does the free software get?

Who is it right for? Advanced students who’ve started organic chemistry.

58. How do soap molecules actually pull grease out of water?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Several dish soaps, cooking oil, clear jars, a stopwatch, and MolView

Shake oil and water with a few drops of each soap. Time how long the mixture stays cloudy before it separates. Run each soap three times.

Then look up the main ingredient of each soap in MolView. Soap molecules have one end that grabs water and one that grabs oil. Does the length of that oily tail predict which soap works best?

Who is it right for? Students who want an easy experiment tied to molecule structure.

59. Why are some sweeteners hundreds of times sweeter than sugar?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 to 3 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: PubChem and MolView

Compare the structures of table sugar, sucralose, aspartame and stevia’s sweet compounds. Sucralose looks almost like sugar, with a few atoms swapped. Aspartame looks nothing like it.

So what do sweet molecules have in common? Find published work on how sweet taste receptors recognize molecules, and test your idea against the structures.

Who is it right for? Students interested in food science or nutrition.

60. Which natural dye fades fastest in sunlight?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 2 to 3 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Turmeric, beets, red cabbage, spinach, white cotton, your phone camera, and PubChem

Dye cotton squares with each plant. Tape half of each square in a sunny window and keep the other half in a drawer. Photograph them every few days and measure the fading.

Then look up each pigment’s structure. Molecules with long chains of alternating double bonds absorb visible light, which gives them color. Do those same structures explain which ones fade first?

Who is it right for? Artsy students who want a science project.

61. Why do some essential oils evaporate faster than others?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Several essential oils, small foil cups, a kitchen scale that reads to 0.01 g, and PubChem for boiling points

Put the same mass of each oil in a foil cup and weigh the cups every hour. Plot how much of each oil is left over time.

Then look up the main compound in each oil, like limonene in orange oil or menthol in peppermint oil. Do the ones with lower boiling points disappear first?

Who is it right for? Students who like scents and patterns.

62. How do chain length and double bonds change a fat’s melting point?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: PubChem and MolView

Look up melting points for fatty acids with 8 to 20 carbons, then for versions with one or more double bonds. Build oleic acid and elaidic acid in MolView. They have the same formula, but one bends and one stays straight.

Graph melting point against chain length and number of double bonds. Can you explain why butter is solid and olive oil is liquid?

Who is it right for? Students interested in food, health or nutrition.

63. What colors are hiding in leaves, and do they change in the fall?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Leaves, rubbing alcohol, coffee filter strips, jars, and PubChem for pigment structures

Mash leaves in a little rubbing alcohol, then let the green liquid creep up a coffee filter strip. The pigments split into separate bands, from green chlorophylls to yellow and orange carotenoids.

Compare summer leaves with fall leaves from the same tree. Are the yellows and oranges new, or were they there all along? Keep the alcohol away from flames.

Who is it right for? Students who love nature and want an easy experiment.

64. Which natural pH indicator works best: cabbage, beets, turmeric or berries?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Red cabbage, beets, turmeric, blueberries, household liquids, pH strips, and ImageJ

Make an indicator from each plant and add it to the same set of household liquids. Photograph each one and measure the color with ImageJ. Score each indicator by how many different pH levels you can tell apart.

Then look up the pigment behind each color. Why do some change across the whole pH range while others barely change at all?

Who is it right for? Students who enjoyed topic 1 and want to go further.

65. How do “BPA-free” plastics compare with BPA itself?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 to 3 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: PubChem and the EPA CompTox Chemicals Dashboard

Look up bisphenol A (BPA) and common replacements like bisphenol S and bisphenol F. Compare their structures and listed properties. How different are the replacements, really, at the level of the molecule?

Then search published studies on whether the replacements behave like BPA in the body. Stick to what the studies show, and note where data is missing.

Who is it right for? Students interested in health and consumer products.

Biochemistry and medicinal chemistry research topics

Biochemistry is chemistry inside living things. If you’re thinking about medicine, pharmacy or biotech, start here. For more on the biology side, see Horizon’s lists of biology research topics, biochemistry courses and biochemistry internships.

66. Does fresh pineapple really stop gelatin from setting?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Gelatin, fresh and canned pineapple, kiwi, papaya, and a ruler

Mix gelatin with juice from fresh pineapple, canned pineapple, kiwi and papaya. Chill them and test how firm each one gets. Then heat some fresh juice before mixing and test again.

Fresh pineapple has an enzyme called bromelain that cuts proteins apart. Canning heats the fruit, which wrecks the enzyme. Can you find the temperature where it stops working?

Who is it right for? First-timers who want a quick, clear result.

67. How does temperature change how fast lactase breaks down milk sugar?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 2 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: Lactase pills from a drugstore, milk, glucose test strips, and a thermometer

Lactase is the enzyme that breaks down lactose, the sugar in milk, into glucose and galactose. Add crushed lactase pills to milk at different temperatures. Use glucose strips to check how much glucose appears over time.

Enzymes speed up as they warm, until they get too hot and fall apart. Your job is to find the sweet spot.

Who is it right for? Students interested in nutrition or how the body digests food.

68. How do aspirin and ibuprofen fit into the same enzyme?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 to 3 weeks
Difficulty: Advanced
Tools or data: The RCSB Protein Data Bank and its built-in 3D viewer

Both drugs block an enzyme called cyclooxygenase, which helps make molecules that cause pain and swelling. Search the Protein Data Bank for structures of this enzyme with each drug bound. Look at where each drug sits and which parts of the enzyme it touches.

Aspirin works differently from ibuprofen once it’s inside. Can you spot why in the structures?

Who is it right for? Future pre-med or pharmacy students.

69. How does one changed amino acid reshape hemoglobin in sickle cell disease?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 to 3 weeks
Difficulty: Advanced
Tools or data: The RCSB Protein Data Bank

Find structures of normal hemoglobin and sickle hemoglobin. Compare them side by side. The difference is one amino acid, swapped from a water-loving one to a water-avoiding one.

How does that tiny change make hemoglobin molecules stick together into long fibers? Map it out using the structures and published research. If genetics is what pulls you in, see Horizon’s list of genetics research programs.

Who is it right for? Students interested in genetics and medicine.

70. Which antacid neutralizes the most acid per dollar?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Several antacid brands, vinegar, red cabbage indicator (see topic 1), and a measuring syringe

Dissolve one tablet of each brand in water with cabbage indicator. Add vinegar a little at a time until the color shifts. Record how much vinegar each tablet handled.

Then divide by price. The most expensive brand isn’t always the one doing the most work. Your data will show you which one is.

Who is it right for? Practical students who like a project with a clear winner.

71. Which approved drugs break the “rule of five,” and why do they still work?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 to 3 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: ChEMBL and PubChem

The “rule of five” is a set of guidelines chemists use to guess whether a pill will be absorbed by your body. It looks at size, how oily the molecule is, and how many hydrogen bonds it can form. Pick 30 approved oral drugs and check each one against the rules.

Which ones break them? Look for patterns. Some types of drugs break the rules often, and finding out why teaches you a lot about drug design.

Who is it right for? Students curious about how new medicines get designed.

72. Does salt concentration change how much DNA you can pull out of strawberries?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Strawberries, dish soap, salt, cold rubbing alcohol, coffee filters, and a kitchen scale

Mash strawberries in a soap and salt solution, filter it, and layer cold rubbing alcohol on top. White strands of DNA will float up. Now repeat with different amounts of salt, and weigh the DNA you collect each time.

Salt helps DNA clump together so it can come out of solution. Is there a point where more salt stops helping? Keep the alcohol away from flames.

Who is it right for? Students who want a biochemistry experiment they can run at home.

73. How does caffeine block the molecule that makes you sleepy?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: PubChem and the RCSB Protein Data Bank

Adenosine builds up in your brain during the day and makes you feel tired. Caffeine blocks the receptor adenosine binds to. Compare their structures in PubChem, then find a receptor structure with caffeine bound in the Protein Data Bank.

What parts of caffeine look like adenosine? What parts are different? That’s the whole story of why your morning coffee works.

Who is it right for? Anyone who’s ever wondered why coffee wakes them up.

74. Which milk or food has the most protein, according to the biuret test?

What you need: School lab
Time: 2 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: Biuret reagent from your school lab, milks and other foods, and ImageJ

With your teacher, add biuret reagent to samples of different milks, egg white and other foods. The more protein, the deeper the purple. Photograph each sample and use ImageJ to put a number on the color.

Build a calibration line using egg white at known dilutions. Then compare your estimates with the nutrition labels.

Who is it right for? Students who want a real lab test for nutrients.

75. How does temperature change how fast amylase breaks down starch?

What you need: School lab
Time: 2 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: Starch solution, amylase, iodine solution from your school lab, and a stopwatch

With your teacher, mix starch and amylase at several temperatures. Every 30 seconds, drop a sample into iodine. Time how long it takes for the blue-black color to stop appearing, which means the starch is gone.

Amylase is the enzyme in your saliva that starts digesting bread. At what temperature does it work fastest, and where does it give up?

Who is it right for? Students interested in digestion or medicine.

76. How different are human, pig and cow insulin?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: UniProt for protein sequences and the RCSB Protein Data Bank

Before lab-made human insulin, people with diabetes used insulin from pigs and cows. Line up the three sequences from UniProt. Pig insulin differs from human insulin by just one amino acid, and cow insulin by three.

Find where those differences sit in a 3D insulin structure. Are they near the parts of the molecule that do the work, or out on the edges?

Who is it right for? Students interested in medicine and how drugs are made.

77. How does penicillin lock onto the bacteria it kills?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 to 3 weeks
Difficulty: Advanced
Tools or data: The RCSB Protein Data Bank and PubChem

Penicillin and its relatives share a strained four-atom ring that reacts with a bacterial enzyme. Find a structure of a penicillin-binding protein with an antibiotic attached. Look at exactly where the ring opens and bonds to the enzyme.

Then compare a few antibiotics from the same family in PubChem. Which parts stay the same, and which parts change?

Who is it right for? Future pre-med students curious about antibiotics.

78. How much sweeter does a banana get as it ripens?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: A low-cost Brix refractometer, bananas bought green, and Google Sheets

Buy a bunch of green bananas and test a small sample of one every day with the refractometer. The Brix reading tells you roughly how much sugar is dissolved in the fruit’s juice. Photograph the peel each day too.

As bananas ripen, enzymes break starch down into sugar. Does the sugar rise steadily, or in a sudden jump?

Who is it right for? Students who want a simple project with food they’ll eat anyway.

Materials chemistry and energy project ideas

Materials chemistry asks how a substance’s structure decides what it can do. These topics connect to plastics, batteries and solar power, three of the busiest areas in chemistry right now. If you’d rather build things in a lab with a group, look at Horizon’s list of chemistry summer camps.

79. Which homemade bioplastic recipe is strongest?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 2 to 3 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Cornstarch, vinegar, glycerin from a drugstore, a stovetop, and a kitchen scale

Cook cornstarch, water and vinegar with different amounts of glycerin. Pour each batch into a thin sheet and let it dry. Cut equal strips and test how much weight each one holds before tearing, and how far it stretches.

Finding the balance between too stiff and too floppy is real materials science. Glycerin is a plasticizer. It slips between the long starch molecules and lets them slide, so too little makes your plastic crack and too much makes it limp.

Who is it right for? Students interested in sustainability.

80. Which metal pair makes the best fruit battery?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Lemons and other fruit, galvanized nails, copper wire, aluminum foil, and a cheap multimeter

Stick two different metals into a lemon and measure the voltage. Try zinc and copper, then other pairs. Then try different fruits and vegetables with the best pair.

Compare your voltages with a table of standard electrode potentials. Your numbers will come out lower than the table, and explaining why is the best part of the project.

Who is it right for? Students who like electronics.

81. Which metal-organic frameworks capture carbon dioxide best?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 3 to 4 weeks
Difficulty: Advanced
Tools or data: Google Scholar for published studies and the Nobel Prize explainer for background

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are crystals built from metal atoms linked by organic molecules, full of tiny holes. They won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Gather published carbon dioxide capture data for five to ten MOFs and compare them.

You’ll be working on one of the hottest questions in chemistry right now. Does hole size matter most, or the metal, or the temperature?

Who is it right for? Advanced students who like reading research papers.

82. How does the cornstarch-to-water ratio change how “solid” oobleck gets?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Cornstarch, water, a marble, a ruler, and your phone’s slow-motion camera

Mix oobleck at five different ratios. Drop a marble from the same height into each one and film it in slow motion. Measure how far it sinks, or whether it bounces.

Oobleck acts like a liquid when you go slow and a solid when you hit it hard. It’s the most fun mess on this list. Can you find the ratio where the change is most dramatic?

Who is it right for? Anyone who wants a messy, memorable project.

83. Which battery material gives the most energy with the least rare metal?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 3 to 4 weeks
Difficulty: Advanced
Tools or data: The Materials Project battery explorer (free account required)

Compare three common lithium battery materials: lithium cobalt oxide, lithium iron phosphate and lithium manganese oxide. Record voltage and capacity for each, then think about the metals involved. Cobalt is costly and hard to source. Iron isn’t.

Battery makers argue about this exact question, and you’ll have data to weigh in. Is there a trade-off between energy and cost, and how big is it?

Who is it right for? Students interested in electric cars or clean energy.

84. Can you make a working solar cell from berry juice?

What you need: School lab
Time: 3 to 4 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: A dye-sensitized solar cell kit (your teacher can order one), berries, and a multimeter

Dye-sensitized solar cells use plant pigments to catch light. Build cells using juice from blackberries, raspberries, blueberries and hibiscus tea. Measure the voltage and current each one makes under the same lamp.

Which pigment works best, and does its color tell you why?

Who is it right for? Students interested in solar energy.

85. Which coating keeps steel nails from rusting longest?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 2 to 4 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Plain steel nails, galvanized nails, nail polish, vegetable oil, petroleum jelly, salt water, and your phone camera

Coat nails with each material, leave some bare, and drop them all into salt water. Photograph them every few days and rate the rust. Weigh them at the start and the end.

Coatings work by keeping water and oxygen away from the iron. Galvanized nails work differently, though. Find out how.

Who is it right for? Students who want an easy long-term experiment.

86. Can you sort household plastics by density?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Clean plastic scraps with recycling codes 1 to 6, water, salt, rubbing alcohol, and a kitchen scale

Cut small pieces from labeled plastics and drop them into water, then salt water, then alcohol and water mixes. Record which ones float and which ones sink. Use the results to rank the plastics from least to most dense.

Recycling plants use the same idea to sort plastics. Compare your ranking with published density ranges for each type. Keep the alcohol away from flames.

Who is it right for? Students interested in recycling.

87. Which glue holds the most weight, and why?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: White glue, a glue stick, wood glue and hot glue, wooden craft sticks, a bucket, and weights like water bottles

Glue pairs of craft sticks with each glue and let them dry the same amount of time. Hang a bucket from each pair and add weight until it breaks. Record the weight at failure and whether the glue or the wood gave way.

Each glue is a different polymer that hardens in its own way. Look up how each one sets, and explain why the winner won.

Who is it right for? Students who like building and testing things.

88. Which material makes the best solar cell, based on its band gap?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 to 3 weeks
Difficulty: Advanced
Tools or data: The Materials Project (free account required) and Google Scholar

Look up the band gaps of silicon, gallium arsenide, cadmium telluride and a common perovskite. For a single-layer solar cell, the best band gap is around 1.3 electron volts. Rank your materials by how close they get.

Then look at what else matters, like cost, toxicity and how long each material lasts. Does the best band gap always win?

Who is it right for? Students interested in solar energy who like data.

89. How does the amount of activator change how stretchy slime gets?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: White PVA glue, baking soda, saline contact lens solution, a ruler, and your phone camera

Make slime batches with different amounts of contact lens solution. Hang a measured blob from a clip and time how far it stretches before it snaps. Plot stretch against the amount of activator you used.

The boric acid in the solution links the long glue molecules together. More links make the slime firmer, but at some point it gets crumbly. Wash your hands after handling it.

Who is it right for? Anyone who wants a fun polymer project.

90. Which paper towel brand absorbs the most water, and why?

What you need: Home setup
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: Several paper towel brands, a kitchen scale, a measuring cup, and your phone camera

Weigh a square of each towel, dip it in water for ten seconds, let it drip for 30 seconds, and weigh it again. Calculate how many grams of water each gram of towel holds.

Paper is made of cellulose fibers that pull water into the gaps between them. Does a thicker towel always hold more, or does the way it’s made matter more?

Who is it right for? Beginners who want a quick practical project.

Computational chemistry projects you can do on a laptop

You can do serious chemistry with no lab at all. These topics use free simulations, databases and code, and they’re the most flexible on the list. If you want to build your coding skills in a program, see Horizon’s lists of online data science research programs and computational biology summer programs.

91. Can VSEPR theory predict every molecule’s shape?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: The free PhET “Molecule Shapes” simulation and MolView

VSEPR is the rule you learn in chemistry class for predicting molecule shapes. Use it to predict the shapes of 20 molecules. Then check each one against its real 3D structure in MolView.

Where does the rule fail? Measure bond angles and figure out what the rule leaves out.

Who is it right for? Students taking their first chemistry course.

92. Can you predict how well a molecule dissolves in water from a few numbers?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 4 to 6 weeks
Difficulty: Advanced
Tools or data: Google Colab for free Python and PubChem for properties

Gather water solubility values for about 100 compounds from PubChem. Add a few simple properties for each one, like molecular weight and how many hydrogen bonds it can form. Build a model in Python that predicts solubility, then test it on compounds the model hasn’t seen.

Which molecules does it get badly wrong? Those outliers are where the chemistry gets interesting.

Who is it right for? Students who code and want to try machine learning.

93. Do chemical databases agree with each other?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 to 3 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: PubChem, the NIST Chemistry WebBook, and the EPA CompTox Chemicals Dashboard

Pick 30 common compounds. Look up their melting point and boiling point in all three databases. Record every value, its units, and whether it was measured or predicted.

Scientists rely on these numbers every day, so finding the gaps is a useful contribution. How often do the databases disagree, and by how much?

Who is it right for? Detail-minded students who like checking facts.

94. Do similar-looking drug molecules always work the same way?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 4 to 6 weeks
Difficulty: Advanced
Tools or data: ChEMBL and Google Colab

Download a set of molecules tested against one protein target from ChEMBL. Use Python to score how similar each pair of molecules looks. Then find pairs that look almost identical but have very different strengths.

Chemists call these “activity cliffs.” Look closely at what’s different between each pair and come up with a reason. For programs that teach this kind of coding, see Horizon’s list of bioinformatics research programs.

Who is it right for? Strong coders interested in medicine.

95. Which periodic table trends hold up best when you graph them?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: The PubChem periodic table and Google Sheets

Download atomic radius, electronegativity and ionization energy for the first 36 elements. Graph each one against atomic number. Your textbook says these follow smooth trends, but do they?

Hunt for the dips and bumps, like the small drops in ionization energy at boron and oxygen. Then explain each one using electron arrangement.

Who is it right for? Students who want a quick no-lab project to start with.

96. Can you predict whether a molecule is polar just from its shape?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: The free PhET “Molecule Polarity” simulation and MolView

Predict whether 20 molecules are polar or nonpolar using their shapes and the atoms they contain. Then check your predictions against published dipole moments.

Which molecules fooled you? Carbon dioxide has polar bonds but no overall polarity, and that kind of surprise is what makes this project work.

Who is it right for? Students taking their first chemistry course.

97. Can you predict which reactions give off heat using Hess’s law?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 2 to 3 weeks
Difficulty: Intermediate
Tools or data: Heats of formation from the NIST Chemistry WebBook and Google Sheets

Pick 20 combustion reactions, from methane to sugar. Use heats of formation to calculate the heat each one releases. Then compare fuels by energy per gram and energy per mole.

Which fuel looks best by one measure but worse by the other? That’s the kind of trade-off engineers argue about.

Who is it right for? Students who like math and energy.

98. Which molecules are most like caffeine, and what do they do?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 1 to 2 weeks
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: The similarity search in PubChem

Run a similarity search on caffeine in PubChem and look at the closest matches. You’ll find theobromine from chocolate and theophylline from tea. Compare their structures and what each one is known to do in the body.

How can molecules that look almost identical have such different effects? Use topic 73 for the receptor side of the story.

Who is it right for? Curious beginners who want a quick database project.

99. How do gas molecules move at different temperatures?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 1 week
Difficulty: Beginner
Tools or data: The free PhET “Gas Properties” simulation and Google Sheets

Run the simulation at several temperatures and record the speeds of the particles. Plot how many particles move at each speed. As you heat the gas, watch the whole curve shift and spread out.

Then change the particle mass and run it again. Why do light gases spread through a room faster than heavy ones?

Who is it right for? Students who like physics as much as chemistry.

100. Can machine learning tell toxic molecules from safe ones?

What you need: No lab needed
Time: 4 to 6 weeks
Difficulty: Advanced
Tools or data: Tox21 toxicity data from the EPA CompTox Chemicals Dashboard and Google Colab

Download a set of molecules that have been tested for one type of toxicity. Describe each one with a few simple numbers and train a model in Python to predict the result. Test it on molecules the model has never seen.

Which molecules does it get wrong, and why? Be clear in your write-up that a prediction is not a safety test.

Who is it right for? Strong coders interested in health and safety.

Frequently asked questions

How long does a chemistry research project take?
It depends on the group. Here’s a rough guide based on the topics on this list:

Group	Typical time
Kitchen and household chemistry	1 to 4 weeks
Reactions and energy	1 to 2 weeks
Measuring what’s in things	1 to 3 weeks, up to 8 for the rain log
Environmental chemistry	1 to 4 weeks, up to 8 for the bag test
Organic chemistry	1 to 3 weeks
Biochemistry and medicine	1 to 3 weeks
Materials and energy	1 to 4 weeks
Computational chemistry	1 to 6 weeks

Add time for writing it up. A full research paper usually takes longer than the experiment itself. Horizon’s guide on how long it takes to write a research paper breaks that down, and the guide to the key parts of a research paper shows you what to include.

Can you publish a high school chemistry project?
You can, especially if your project has a clear question, solid data, and a careful write-up. Several journals accept work from high school students, though none of them guarantee acceptance. Start with Horizon’s list of research journals for high school students, the guide on how to publish research in high school, and the walkthrough on formatting your citations. Not ready to publish? Here’s what else you can do with a high school research paper.

Where can you find a chemistry mentor or program?
Ask your chemistry teacher first, and check local university chemistry departments. Most good mentor matches start with one email from you. You can also browse Horizon’s lists of chemistry research programs, online chemistry research programs, free chemistry summer programs and free research mentorship programs, or read about how to find a research lab as a high school student. If you’ve never done research before, start with research programs for complete beginners.

No lab nearby, or no teacher with time to help? Horizon pairs you one-on-one with a PhD mentor online, so where you live doesn’t decide what you can research.

Resources

Databases and tools

• PubChem, National Institutes of Health
• NIST Chemistry WebBook, National Institute of Standards and Technology
• Spectral Database for Organic Compounds, AIST Japan
• RCSB Protein Data Bank
• EPA CompTox Chemicals Dashboard
• ChEMBL, EMBL-EBI
• Materials Project
• Water Quality Portal, USGS and EPA
• OpenAQ
• USDA FoodData Central
• PhET Interactive Simulations, University of Colorado Boulder
• MolView
• Avogadro
• ImageJ
• phyphox
• Google Colab

Safety and competitions

• RAMP for students, American Chemical Society
• ISEF Chemistry category, Society for Science
• ISEF Biochemistry category, Society for Science

Background reading

• Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025 press release, NobelPrize.org
• PFAS explained, U.S. EPA

More from Horizon

• How to choose a research topic as a high school student
• Biology research topics for high school students
• STEM research topics for high school students
• Chemistry research programs for high school students
• Online chemistry research programs for high school students
• Online chemistry summer programs for high school students
• Free chemistry summer programs for high school students
• Research competitions for high school students
• Research journals for high school students
• How to publish research in high school
• Research programs for complete beginners

Image source: Horizon Academic Research Program