Primoris Academy Chemistry Team Soars Again

The Chemistry team of Primoris Academy in Westwood is the 2019 winner of the Platinum Crucible of the 34th Annual New Jersey Chemistry Olympics. This victory comes soon after the team defended its winning title at the 2019 New Jersey Science League Chemistry II competition. The Chemistry Olympics, organized by the American Chemical Society and The New Jersey Institute of Technology on the NJIT campus, included research presentations and laboratory challenges. Primoris Academy’s team received five awards, including the top award, the Platinum Crucible. Two hundred and fifty top New Jersey chemistry high school students, representing sixteen high schools, participated in the event.

Over six hours, teams competed in six events selected from a choice of ten. This year’s theme was “Energy.” The Primoris Academy team took home gold in two events, Nomenclature and Analytical Lab. The lab event challenge required competitors to remove copper coating from a penny and use spectrophotometric analysis to determine the density of the copper covering the zinc center. Primoris teammate Minkyu Son of Cresskill said “There was a lot of practice needed to be accurate with the instruments for this event, but it was just as important taking time and knowing our math was sound. We wanted to make sure we had everything right.”

Andrew Markov of Cliffside Park expressed the team’s reaction to their accomplishments. “I think it’s safe to say we are all pretty excited right now. As cliché as it sounds, all our hard work, determination and comradeship were really important today, and I think it is why we ended up with the crucible.” In addition to Minkyu and Andrew, members of the Primoris Academy team include Clara Kim of Oradell, Andrew Krapivin of Fair Lawn, David Euhiyun Choi of Ridgewood, Tyler Romeo of Wood Ridge, and Jaime Kim of Paramus. Merck, Exemplify and Ashland LLC provided support for the NJ Chemistry Olympics.