You’ve reached that stage in your IB journey where you have to decide what to do for your Chemistry Internal Assessment (IA). Like many IB students, you may be finding it challenging to think of an idea that a) you are really interested in and b) is feasible for you to complete given the time and resources available.
If you are looking for a bit of inspiration to kick your Chemistry brain into gear, check out our list of 50 ideas for your IB Chemistry IA below. These ideas have been extracted from the previous edition of our student guide, Chemistry Internal Assessment Standard & Higher Level, written by experienced teacher and author Dave Allen. Watch out for the new edition in autumn 2025 which will contain even more ideas and is fully updated to help you achieve your best result in the Chemistry Internal Assessment.
IB Chemistry IA Ideas
The ideas presented here are exactly that: ideas, not research questions. The statements are deliberately broad and, if you decide to use any of these ideas, you should be as specific as you can.
Please make sure you show your idea to your teacher before you get too involved in the planning stages as there may be a very good reason why you are unable to carry out your idea.
- Investigate chemical equilibria (determine Kc for a reaction).
- Investigate a weak acid-strong base titration (determine the Ka of a weak acid).
- Investigate the enthalpy change of a redox reaction.
- Investigate an aspect of a simple voltaic cell.
- Investigate the Ideal Gas Laws using a data logger.
- Determine the amount of copper in coins using colorimetric analysis.
- Analysis of seaweed (seaweed is a good source of Br and I).
- Investigate the amount of CaCO3 in brown and white eggshells.
- Compare the percentage of vitamin C in various brands of juice.
- Investigate the speed of neutralisation of antacids from different sources.
- Investigate the kinetics of the bromine clock reaction to determine the order of reaction.
- Investigate factors affecting electroplating.
- Investigate factors affecting electrolysis.
- Investigate the enthalpy of neutralisation of different acid / base concentrations.
- Determine the activation energy of iodine-clock reaction.
- Investigate the effect of pH on the rate of rusting.
- Calculate the Kw for water at different temperatures by measuring its pH.
- Investigate factors determining heat of combustion in alcohols.
- Investigate the level of unsaturation in different oil brands.
- Investigate the pH of soil.
- Investigate the effects of heterogeneous catalysis on the activation energy of a reaction.
- Investigate how the hardness of water affects the solubility of salts.
- Investigate whether oxidation of tea/coffee changes its pH.
- Investigate the effect of soil pH on the chlorophyll content in plant leaves.
- Determine the enthalpy change of the thermal decomposition of sodium hydrogen carbonate.
Our forthcoming new edition of Chemistry Internal Assessment will contain at least another 25 ideas to fire up your imagination, so keep an eye on our news page or sign up for our updates!
Remember:
- You should always get your IA checked out by your class teacher before you carry out any lab work to ensure that your experiment is safe.
- Any IA lab should be thoroughly risk assessed by yourself and your teacher should check this risk assessment.