Mumbai: India’s four-member team returned triumphant from the 57th International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) 2025 in Dubai, bagging two gold and two silver medals. The event, held from 5–14 July, saw participation from 354 students across 90 countries. India ranked joint sixth on the medal tally, alongside Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Israel. The top three positions went to the USA, China and Vietnam.

Maharashtra snatched a Gold by Devesh Pankaj Bhaiya from Jalgaon. Besides, Debadatta Priyadarshi from Bhubaneshwar, Odisha bagged silver, Sandeep Kuchi from Hyderabad achieved Gold and Ujjwal Kesari from New Delhi secured silver.

“The competition has a hands-on experimental exam and a written theoretical examination. Both experimental and theory exams were of 5 hour duration. Our students were well trained in the topics as well as experimental techniques needed for the exams. The real challenge was to complete the lengthy tasks within the stipulated time,” informed Head mentor Prof. Ankush Gupta (HBCSE, Mumbai).

 With three tough and lengthy problems the experimental exam was a great challenge to cross the hurdle. The first one involved synthesizing an iron complex and determining its composition through UV-spectroscopy of its solutions.

The second experiment asked to identify 5 mixtures of 10 amino acids using thin-layer chromatography, qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis of a solution of one of the 10 amino acids.

Third experiment involved identifying a set of unknown organic compounds through their mutual reactions (which yield colourless reaction products) and identifying reaction products by thin layer chromatography using multiple visualization techniques. Theoretical examination had 9 problems spanning organic, inorganic, analytical, physical and biochemistry domains, as shared by gold medallist Devesh of Jalgaon.