Newcastle University's new Outreach Laboratory was recently opened by the Vice Chancellor, Professor Chris Brink. The Outreach project aims to inspire and encourage young people to gain and maintain an interest in chemistry and it is anticipated that over 3,000 children and young people from local and regional schools will visit the Outreach Laboratory each year to help them realise their potential in science. The range of Asynt DrySyn heating blocks supplied to the new facility will help familiarise secondary school pupils with the procedures and equipment they will encounter in a modern chemistry laboratory.

Dr. Peter Hoare, the University's Chemistry Outreach Officer, said "For many secondary schools, a well equipped laboratory is prohibitively expensive and our Outreach laboratory will allow many more pupils to conduct interesting and inspiring experiments. Schools can either choose from a bank of standard experiments or undertake their own. Even basic laboratory heating devices like hotplate stirrers and heating mantles may not be available in many schools, and using the DrySyn units we can perform some of the key processes in synthetic chemistry like distillation or refluxing. The DrySyn approach is very economical and flexible - rather than use a dedicated heating mantle to heat a round-bottomed flask, we can use a DrySyn insert on a standard hotplate and then use the same hotplate to heat a flat bottomed beaker - and of course much it's safer than oil baths. We have a range of DrySyn units covering vessels from 50ml to two litres."

According to Martyn Fordham, Asynt's Managing Director, over 25,000 DrySyn laboratory heating and cooling blocks have now been supplied worldwide. Units are available to handle volumes from 1ml to five litres. The latest DrySyn versions are 25% faster than messy, dangerous oil baths and can heat a reaction flask to 300°C, while at the other end of the temperature range a standard laboratory chiller supplies the cooling (down to -30°C) for the unique, recently patented DrySyn Cool.

Call 01638 781709 or visit www.asynt.com for more information. There is more information about the Outreach project on the University's website at www.ncl.ac.uk/chemistry/outreach .