Food Science

Vitamin C Titration Lab Experiment

Group Members:
June, Thanatcha Jantanapongpun
Phrare, Bhudharhita Teinwan
Kam, Pitiporn Prachayamongkol
Gam, Nichanan Suteeduangsamorn
10-06
June, 18 2015
Introduction:

Food Preservation is the process of preparing food that would prevent the growth of
bacteria which would make the food stay longer and reducing the percentage of food spoiling.
There are many different way of food preservation such as freezing, sugaring, salting and
smoking. We learnt a lot about some types of food preservation in this unit in Food Science,
Canning, Freezing and Dehydrating. We realize that preserving food would occur loss of nutrient
in any kind of food but different types of food preservation would allow the nutrient to stay in
the food differently. Freezing is the best method to maintain the best nutrition value because it
doesnt require heating that would destroy the nutrition like most of the food preservation
methods does.
Every fruit contain lots of vitamin and mineral. Kiwi, the fruit that we used in this
experiment is a very healthy thing to consume. Its a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin
K and Vitamin C. Kiwi contains very high amount of Vitamin C. About 177 grams of fresh Kiwi
can contain up to 164 milligrams of Vitamin C. We are considering if the kiwi that was already
went through different food preservation method would still remain high amount of Vitamin C
and we would see which food preservation method are best to use when it comes to preserving
Kiwi.
Titration is the process that is use to find a concentration of a solution by calculating from
a known concentration. So, we are going to use the titration method to find out the amount of
vitamin inside the different processed Kiwis such as frozen kiwi, dehydrated kiwi, canned kiwi
and including fresh kiwi just to compare with others as a control variable.
Purpose:
The purpose of this experiment is to see the differences in amount of Vitamin C in
different types of Kiwi that was preserved by different preservation methods.
Hypothesis:
If we perform the titration correctly, then the fresh one would contain most amount of
Vitamin C, followed by frozen ,canned and dehydrated.
Materials:
1. Lab Coats
2. Gloves
3. Safety goggles
4. Closed footwear
5. Burette and Stand
6. 100 mL or 200 mL volumetric flask
7. 20 mL pipette
8. 10 mL and 100 mL measuring cylinders
9. 250 mL conical flask
10. Starch indicator solution
11. Iodine solution

Procedure:
1. Add 1 mL Starch Indicator Solution in all the conical flasks.
2. Add 40 ml of Distilled water in the conical flask.
3. Measure 20 mL of sample solution into 250 mL conical flask.
4. Titrate the sample with Iodine solution. The endpoint of the titration is identified
as first permanent trace of color change.
5. Repeat titration 3 times per sample.
6. Repeat the titration procedure for the frozen fruit.

Data table:

FRESH KIWI
VOLUME

TRAIL 1

TRAIL 2

TRAIL 3

Average

Moles/gram

IODINE

5.32

4.94

4.95

5.07

0.00000254

SAMPLE

20

20

20

20

FROZEN KIWI
VOLUME

TRAIL 1

TRAIL 2

TRAIL 3

Average

Moles/gram

IODINE

3.19

3.14

3.24

3.19

0.000008

SAMPLE

20

20

20

20

DEHYDRATED KIWI
VOLUME

TRAIL 1

TRAIL 2

TRAIL 3

Average

Moles/gram

IODINE

6.75

6.04

5.65

6.146

0.0000119

SAMPLE

20.01

20.02

20.02

20.016

(This chart of dehydrated was not performed by us but was performed by our friends,
Nons group)

Calculation
Fresh Kiwi:

Frozen Kiwi:

Denatured Kiwi:

Analysing question:

1. Which form of food preservation contained the highest concentration of Vitamin C (ascorbic acid)? You
need to collect the data from the other groups for the samples you did not titrate.
Ans: In this experiment, the result is pointing that the Dehydrated kiwi contained highest concentration of
Vitamin C, even higher than the fresh ones. Which was whole different from our hypothesis. This was quite
unbelievable for us because before the kiwi could enter the dehydration process, it first came from the fresh
kiwi. And when it goes through the process, it cant increase the Vitamin C but only decrease. So the fresh
one would have the higher concentration of Vitamin C than the dehydrated ones. They might be something
wrong with the experiment which we would discuss about it in next analyzing question.
2. Were your hypothesis correct? Explain. What might be some reasons to explain why your hypothesis
were not correct?
Ans: In this experiment, our hypothesis was wrong because there were some errors in making the kiwi
solution. As told from our teacher that the solution of dehydrated have a very high intensity compared to the
other two solution. The liquid added to the dehydrated kiwi was too little. This causes our hypothesis to be
incorrect. Instead of fresh kiwi having the highest concentration of Vitamin C, it was dehydrated kiwi that
have the highest concentration of Vitamin C. Which was absolutely wrong because the fresh kiwi itself
didnt went through any food preservation method so it must remain the highest concentration of Vitamin C.
However, from the calculations, if the error didnt happen, our hypothesis will be correct and we would
predict that the dehydrated kiwi would even have the lower concentration of Vitamin C than the fresh ones.
The frozen ones would be the one with lowest concentration of Vitamin C.
3. From this experiment, do you think you could predict the concentration of all vitamins and minerals in a
food prepared with the different preservation techniques? (Think: Are all vitamins and minerals the same?)
Explain.
Ans: We would say yes because now we already know what result to expect from the food from different
food preservation. If we got an ideas like what types of vitamins and minerals our food contain the most, it
would be quite easy for us to predict. Not saying that we could always make a correct statement but it might
often be correct. Because we already got an idea that the fresh one would have the most vitamins and
minerals remain and followed by the frozen ones. It made us understand more about the concept of the
remaining of vitamins and minerals in food which would be a lot easier for us to make a guess.
Conclusion:
As a conclusion in the experiment, it can be concluded that fresh kiwi contains the
highest vitamin C followed by dehydrated and frozen kiwi. However, there was an error occured
in making the kiwi solution for the experiment. The intensity of the dehydrated kiwi solution was
very high because the liquid added to the extracted dehydrated kiwi was in a very small amount.
This would surely increase the result of Vitamin C of the dehydrated ones. Which the results of
this experiment would remains unknown for now. But from prediction, the dehydrated kiwi
would still contain a higher concentration of Vitamin C than the frozen based on our result we
get. As said, even Frozen must be the best preservation method that would keep the nutrient but I
thought that as us were taught in the class that if the freezing were not good the nutrition might

slowly decreasing by that and this made us considered that the dehydrated kiwi might have a
higher concentration of Vitamin C than the frozen kiwi.
For the fresh kiwi, the solutions color is light green. When Iodine solution is added in
by dropping from the burette, there was a dark green spot because of when acid and bases met.
After we swirled the flask, the solution turns its color back to light green. Until it reaches the
point that acid and bases were equal, the color stopped turning back to its original color. From
our result in 3 times of trials, 5.32, 4.94, 4.95 mL which made the average of 5.07 mL of iodine
were used to neutralized the 60 mL of the mixture of fresh Kiwi and water. After the
calculation, it is resulted that the vitamin C in fresh kiwi in this lab is 0.00000254 moles/gram.
For the frozen kiwi, the solutions color is light yellowish green. When Iodine solution is
added in by dropping from the burette, there was a brownish-green spot because of when acid
and bases met. After we swirled the flask, the solution turns its color back to light green. Until
it reaches the point that acid and bases were equal, the color stopped turning back to its original
color. From our result in 3 times of trials, 3.19, 3.14, 3.24 mL which made the average of 3.19
mL of iodine were used to neutralized the 60 mL of the mixture of frozen Kiwi and water. After
the calculation, it is resulted that the vitamin C in frozen kiwi in this lab is 0.000008 moles/gram.
For the dehydrated kiwi, the solutions color is dark greenish-brownish. Our group didnt
perform the titration of dehydrated kiwi so we dont see the colors when the iodine is added in
the solution. From other groups result in 3 times of trials, 6.75, 6.04, 5.65 mL which made the
average of 6.146 mL of iodine were used to neutralized the 60 mL of the mixture of frozen Kiwi
and water. After the calculation, it is resulted that the vitamin C in frozen kiwi in this lab is
0.0000119 moles/gram.
We didnt perform the experiment perfectly because of maybe we might make some
mistakes in of the decimal places of the readings.
From this experiment, weve learnt that when a food is processed through different
methods, the amount of vitamin and minerals many vary due to how is it processed. As observed
from the result, we would say that Dehydration is the best method based on the result we got. But
personally we think that it might be the freezing method but the result is not pointing that way. If
we want the result to be reliable, we believe that we will need to perform the experiment once
again. But we will pointed out that the best way to eat the food that remain the most amount of
vitamins and minerals is to eat it fresh. No need of worrying about how much nutrition they still
remain inside the food. Food preservation is putting food through a process which some of the
food preservation method require us to apply heat to the food that obviously would destroy some
of the vitamins and minerals. It is obvious that different kinds of preservation methods affect the
vitamin C and eventually affect other kinds of vitamin, also the minerals.