Grosse Pointe High Schoolers Win Chemistry Award

A research project conducted by the Grosse Pointe North High School Chemistry Club may help solve environmental crises, like the one that damaged so many lives in Flint. The club worked most of last school year to create a ligand, a molecule that binds to metals, which would not only bind to metal ions, but that could separate these ions from non-polar solutions. The eventual goal: pulling metals out of water, like the lead leaching from pipes in Flint.

Michal Ruprecht, president of the Grosse Pointe North High School Chemistry Club, told P&G Newspapers the group had very strong feelings about their work. “We started doing research on something we were passionate about,” he said. “It’s such a relevant topic. Hopefully we’ll be able to continue our research and put it to use. That’s something we’ll be researching this year. We know it could be of use for people one day.”

Ruprecht actually initiated the work before bringing the project to his school club. Working with Dr. Mark Benvenuto, a chemistry professor at Wayne State, the current Grosse Pointe North senior began focusing on possible solutions to Flint’s water woes. Awarded the 2016-17 Network of Educators in Science and Technology Student Award, Ruprecht also received the 2017 American Chemistry Society CIBA Travel Award for Green Chemistry Research, becoming the first high schooler to be so honored. He will travel to the ACS national meeting in August.

Read full coverage of this story in the P&G Newspapers.

Patch File Photo.