10 Science - Making Indicators

Hi!

For todayś blog post, I will be writing about my second blogpost for science, well technically third. Explaining once again our blogging system for science, we need to create two blog postś. Regarding two science experiments out of 5, in my last blog post, I had chosen ´testing pH´. 

For today I will be writing about my experiment of when we created indicators an indicator is mainly a chemical that indicates whether something is an acid or a base. We made most of our indicators using naturals ingredients. 

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Aim: To make acid-base indicators using everyday substances. 

Equipment:

• Red Cabbage
• Tea
• Beetroot (juice)
• Turmeric 
• Cranberry Juice
• Water 
• Alcohol
• Beakers
• Tripod
• Bunsen Burner
• Gauze Mat 

( As we didn't have gas in our science lab we substituted the tripod, bunsen burner, and gauze mat. By heating the water in a kettle instead, it did the same thing as it would´ve with those three pieces of equipment.)

Method:

Task 1:

For the cabbage:

Cut or dice the cabbage and cut enough to fill a beaker, and pour boiling hot water into the beaker till just above the cabbage. Or you could just add normal temperature water into the beaker reaching just over the cabbage. Put over a bunsen burner and wait for ten minutes till the water is a vibrant and bold violet. The same method would be with boiling water from a kettle. You then need to filter out the water by separate the cabbage and the water into another beaker you will only be needing the water. You can do this by using a funnel which is what we did. Or just possibly use a strainer for it to be more efficient. 

For the tea:

Once again boil water using a kettle or a bunsen burner make sure the beaker has 100ml of water.  Add three tea bags so it's very strong, this will be resulting in the color of the water is dark brown nearly black. After it has reached that color, remove the tea bags, and set the beaker aside.  

For the cranberry juice:

Pour 100ml of cranberry juice into a beaker and set aside 

For the beetroot juice or beetroot. 

If you have beetroot juice it would be an easier method, as you would only be needing to add 100ml of beetroot juice into a beaker. Which is the method we used, so it made things a lot easier for us. But if you just have beetroot as in the vegetable you will need to dice it and doing the same thing as the cabbage. Either boil it with water in a beaker over a bunsen burner for about ten minutes. Or just simply add boiling water to a beaker with the beetroot. You will then need to filter or separate the water. Make sure the water is a very vibrant and bold violet color before separating. When you are filtering out the water pour it into another beaker to up around 100ml. 

For the turmeric and alcohol:

Mix 1 teaspoon of turmeric in 100ml of alcohol in a beaker and set aside. 

Task 2:

1. You now have five beakers, each containing a different indicator. 
2. Using a pipette, place a few drops of any of the indicators that you have created onto 2 dimples on the spotting tile. 
3. Add a few drops of HCI (Acid) to one dimple and a few drops of NaOH (Alkali) to the other dimple. 
4. Record the changes into the table provided in the Scipad. 
5. Clean the pipette and repeat for the Beetroot, Tea, Cranberry, and Turmeric indicators. 

Results: 

Indicator	Color in HCI (acid)	Color in NaOH (alkali)
Cranberry	Pink	Green
Beetroot	Red	Yellow
Turmeric	Yellow	Orange
Cabbage	Pink	Green
Tea	Orange	Brown

Discussion:

When we were making the indicators we had to compromise with some of the things as we didn't have any gas in the science lab we were in. The results from the experiment were all staying within the acidic range. On the pH scale, but this was because we used substances that had acidic properties. Some of the results were pretty unexpected for example the cranberry, the color when we added alkali. Using natural ingredients was an interesting way to create indicators. This also shows that in possibly any substance it could be an acid or base just by telling from a pH scale. 

Conclusion:

I really enjoyed this experiment it was interesting and a unique way to create indicators. It was also entertaining to see what color the indicators would turn out as. Once again, the experiment showed that see whether a substance is an acid or base by using an indicator.