Experiment Testing Organic Molecules in Commercially Available Protein Supplements
Introduction
In this experiment, my lab partners and I examined three different samples of protein supplements in order to test for organic molecules such as sugar, starch, and protein. The average consumer that purchases protein supplements, such as those we examined in lab, use them for physical fitness. This means that they would be searching for the protein powder with the most amount of protein and least amounts of other ingredients such as sugar and starch; however, this can be difficult to judge just from the nutrition label. Because we were interested in finding the amounts of sugar, proteins, and starch in each sample, we ran both a qualitative and …show more content…
We weighed out the appropriate amount of supplement based on these calculations and added 2mL of distilled water to each beaker and mixed to make an aqueous solution. In order to yield the correct concentration to react with the reagents, we conducted a 1:10 dilution by adding another 18mL of water to the 2mL solution already in the beaker. In clean test tubes, using three test tubes for each supplement sample (9 total) we combined 1 mL of protein sample solution with 200 microliters of each reagent. For example, three test tubes were made with 1mL of just Supplement 1 solution so that it could be reacted with each reagent (Benedict 's Reagent, Lugol 's Reagent, and Biuret 's Reagent) separately in order to be able to note color change. Another three test tubes containing 1mL of each of the positive controls (protein, sugar, and starch) were combined with their appropriate reagent and three test tubes of water were also mixed with the reagents to create a negative control. The solutions containing Benedict 's Reagent were heated to 65C for 4-7 minutes for the reaction to happen. The final colors and color change of each test tube of each solution tested were recorded. My lab group proceeded to pour the contents of each tube in the appropriate waste containers after our information was gathered. All test tubes were rinsed and placed to dry, the lab bench was cleaned with 10% bleach, and hands were washed before exiting the lab
Introduction
In this experiment, my lab partners and I examined three different samples of protein supplements in order to test for organic molecules such as sugar, starch, and protein. The average consumer that purchases protein supplements, such as those we examined in lab, use them for physical fitness. This means that they would be searching for the protein powder with the most amount of protein and least amounts of other ingredients such as sugar and starch; however, this can be difficult to judge just from the nutrition label. Because we were interested in finding the amounts of sugar, proteins, and starch in each sample, we ran both a qualitative and …show more content…
We weighed out the appropriate amount of supplement based on these calculations and added 2mL of distilled water to each beaker and mixed to make an aqueous solution. In order to yield the correct concentration to react with the reagents, we conducted a 1:10 dilution by adding another 18mL of water to the 2mL solution already in the beaker. In clean test tubes, using three test tubes for each supplement sample (9 total) we combined 1 mL of protein sample solution with 200 microliters of each reagent. For example, three test tubes were made with 1mL of just Supplement 1 solution so that it could be reacted with each reagent (Benedict 's Reagent, Lugol 's Reagent, and Biuret 's Reagent) separately in order to be able to note color change. Another three test tubes containing 1mL of each of the positive controls (protein, sugar, and starch) were combined with their appropriate reagent and three test tubes of water were also mixed with the reagents to create a negative control. The solutions containing Benedict 's Reagent were heated to 65C for 4-7 minutes for the reaction to happen. The final colors and color change of each test tube of each solution tested were recorded. My lab group proceeded to pour the contents of each tube in the appropriate waste containers after our information was gathered. All test tubes were rinsed and placed to dry, the lab bench was cleaned with 10% bleach, and hands were washed before exiting the lab