Discussion:
Through experimentation, it has been determined spectroscopy provides valuable information on the absorbance behavior of triclosan in a solution. It acts as a viable way to measure the concentration of triclosan in a mixture. The data obtained using spectroscopy showed the soap sample contained 0.461% triclosan by mass. This coincides exactly with the information on the antibacterial concentration found on the bottle of soap. When using the spectroscopy method as a simple procedure for measuring the concentration of triclosan in a given mixture, outside data needs to be considered to validate the findings. For the tested green soap, the class data for the percentage of triclosan was consulted to determine how accurate the spectroscopy …show more content…
After removing three of the calculated concentrations due to being extreme outliers, likely from an error during the experiment, including improper conversion of the grams to milligrams of triclosan and computational mistakes, the average percent error is about 13%. Over half of these determined triclosan concentrations had error under 10%. While spectroscopy is not an exact method for measuring the amount of triclosan in soap, it allows fairly accurate calculations for the amount of antibiotic present. The range of the percentage of antibacterial in the soap measured was between 0.27% and 0.60%, a difference of 0.33%. We found there to be 0.46% triclosan by mass in the green soap, with a percent error under 1%. Overall, spectroscopy appears to be an acceptable method for finding the concentration of triclosan in a mixture. Both precision and accuracy could be improved by ensuring all spectrometers are properly calibrated, triclosan solutions dissolved completely, and final calculations …show more content…
The hydronium ion concentration impacts the chemical bonding of many compounds and changes how they interact with surrounding molecules. By manipulating the ph level from basic to acidic, we can see how the absorption values change for triclosan. When all the spectra are graphed together from each pH change, the effect on triclosan is easily seen. Triclosan has an absorbance around 0.8 in basic solutions, similar to when a pure sample of the antibiotic was used. In an acidic environment, the absorbance of triclosan decreases to about 0.5. This suggests some of the chemical has been degraded simply from the acidity of the surrounding solution. Knowing how the pH factors into the breakdown of Triclosan molecules will be valuable in our future research and experimentation of its
Through experimentation, it has been determined spectroscopy provides valuable information on the absorbance behavior of triclosan in a solution. It acts as a viable way to measure the concentration of triclosan in a mixture. The data obtained using spectroscopy showed the soap sample contained 0.461% triclosan by mass. This coincides exactly with the information on the antibacterial concentration found on the bottle of soap. When using the spectroscopy method as a simple procedure for measuring the concentration of triclosan in a given mixture, outside data needs to be considered to validate the findings. For the tested green soap, the class data for the percentage of triclosan was consulted to determine how accurate the spectroscopy …show more content…
After removing three of the calculated concentrations due to being extreme outliers, likely from an error during the experiment, including improper conversion of the grams to milligrams of triclosan and computational mistakes, the average percent error is about 13%. Over half of these determined triclosan concentrations had error under 10%. While spectroscopy is not an exact method for measuring the amount of triclosan in soap, it allows fairly accurate calculations for the amount of antibiotic present. The range of the percentage of antibacterial in the soap measured was between 0.27% and 0.60%, a difference of 0.33%. We found there to be 0.46% triclosan by mass in the green soap, with a percent error under 1%. Overall, spectroscopy appears to be an acceptable method for finding the concentration of triclosan in a mixture. Both precision and accuracy could be improved by ensuring all spectrometers are properly calibrated, triclosan solutions dissolved completely, and final calculations …show more content…
The hydronium ion concentration impacts the chemical bonding of many compounds and changes how they interact with surrounding molecules. By manipulating the ph level from basic to acidic, we can see how the absorption values change for triclosan. When all the spectra are graphed together from each pH change, the effect on triclosan is easily seen. Triclosan has an absorbance around 0.8 in basic solutions, similar to when a pure sample of the antibiotic was used. In an acidic environment, the absorbance of triclosan decreases to about 0.5. This suggests some of the chemical has been degraded simply from the acidity of the surrounding solution. Knowing how the pH factors into the breakdown of Triclosan molecules will be valuable in our future research and experimentation of its