Yesterday my first year A level chemistry students completed their first ever reflux reaction. It’s always my favourite moment of the academic year. For me it represents real chemistry and the students always really enjoy it. We dehydrated some cyclohexanol using concentrated acid and then separated the cyclohexene formed from the product by distillation. At the end of the session the students said the lesson had flown by. Praise indeed for a lesson between 3:50 and 5:20! We’re all looking forward to purifying the product next week.