Red Cabbage Indicator

Indicators are chemical compounds that can be added to a solution to

determine whether it is acidicor alkaline.
The indicator will change colour depending on whether an acid or
an alkali is added.
The colour in red cabbage (it is a pigment called an anthocyanin) makes
a very good indicator.

Acids and alkalis

Acids have a sour taste, like vinegar (which contains ethanoic acid) and
lemons (which contain citric acid).
Alkalis are substances that react with acids and neutralise them. Soap
and washing powder are alkaline.
Acids and alkalis are found in a surprising number of places. Some are
edible and are found in foods. Others are very strong and can be harmful,
such as the acid in car batteries and the alkali in oven cleaners.

Our experiment
First we had to extract the purple dye. To do this we tore our red cabbage
leaves into very tiny pieces.
You could also chop up the leaves using a sharp knife or a blender, or
grind them in a pestle and mortar.

We put the chopped cabbage into a jug, poured hot water onto it and left
it for a few minutes. The water turned a bright purplish-blue colour. Then
we used a fine sieve over a funnel to strain the pieces of cabbage out.

Each of us had a pipette and a small clear beaker. We pipetted a small

amount of indicator solution into our beakers.
To begin with the indicator was purple. This is because water alone is not
acidic or alkaline - we say it is neutral.
Then we added a different test compound to each small beaker.
We started by testing vinegar, which is weakly acidic, and sodium
bicarbonate, which makes a weakalkaline solution in water.
The acid turned the indicator pink, and the alkali turned it blue.

Miss Mackie and Mrs deBoeck tested some limescale remover and
some oven cleaner. (We had to be careful with these, as they
are corrosive or caustic, which means they can burn if you get them on
your skin.)

The limescale remover turned the indicator red and the oven cleaner
turned it green.
Limescale remover contains astrong acid called hydrochloric acid and
oven cleaner contains astrong alkali called ammonia.
So we could use our indicator to tell the difference
between strongand weak acids and alkalis.
We also tested some bleach, which contains the strong alkali sodium
hydroxide. The sodium hydroxide in the bleach turned the indicator pale
green at first, but then (as the bleach bleached the colour out of the
indicator) it went pale yellow!

Now we tested some other substances, these are some of the other things
we tried:

orange juice
washing powder
cream cleaner
soap
lemon juice
cream cleaner

We put a few drops of each substance into our little beakers of indicator
and stirred them carefully, then watched for the colour changes. Here are
some photos of us doing the experiment.

We found that the acids turned the indicator pink or red, and alkalis
turned it blue, green or yellow depending on how strong the alkali was.
We also tried testing sugar and salt. Neither of them made the indicator
change colour - so they were not acid or alkaline. Sugar and salt solution
are neutral (like water).
Here is a photo of all the beautiful colours our red cabbage indicator made
with all our different test solutions!