INTERNATIONAL ADVANCED LEVEL

AS BIOLOGY
CORE PRACTICALS

PRACTICAL TWO MEASURING THE VITAMIN C CONTENTS OF FOODS AND FRUIT JUICES

Amal Hulangamuwa Intec Asia Campus

PRACTICAL TWO
MEASURING THE VITAMIN C CONTENTS OF FOODS AND FRUIT JUICES
Preparation a Make up a 1% solution of vitamin C with 1 g of vitamin C in 100 cm3; this is 10 mg cm3. b Make up a 1% solution of DCPIP. Investigation c Pipette 2 cm3 of vitamin C solution into a test tube. d Using a graduated pipette or a burette, add 1% DCPIP drop by drop to the vitamin C solution. Shake the tube gently after adding each drop. Add DCPIP solution until the blue colour of the final drop does not disappear. e Record the exact amount of DCPIP solution that was added. f Repeat the procedure and calculate an average result. g Repeat with the fruit juices to be tested. If more than 5 cm3 of DCPIP are completely decolourised, dilute the fruit juice and repeat the test. If the fruit juice has a strong colour that will interfere with determining the end point, dilute the juice before testing. h Calculate the amount of vitamin C in the standard solution in mg cm3. Calculate how much vitamin C there is in each of the fruit juices in mg cm3.

General Notes
In acidic conditions, DCPIP does not decolourise completely, but remains pink. If you are testing lots of different solutions, it is easier to put the DCPIP in a burette and titrate it into measured samples of fruit juice, rather than cleaning a burette several times in one lesson. Hypotheses to test could include fresh juices have more vitamin C than long-life fruit squashes have less vitamin C than fruit juices if heat destroys vitamin C, then heat-treated long-life juices will have lower concentrations if heat destroys vitamin C, then boiled fruit juice will have lower concentrations than unboiled vitamin C degrades in vitamin tablets, and old tablets will have less than fresh ones

Ethical issues
There are no ethical issues with this procedure.

Health, Safety and Technical notes

The chemicals used in this investigation are low hazard.