Creation of the Food Dye Coloring of a New Drink - Lab Report Example

Creation of the Food Dye Coloring of a New Drink By Comparison With the Commercial Abstract The purpose of this experiment is to synthesize a food dye that will be used to color a new drink manufactured by comparing it with the commercial beverage. This will be done in three steps. The first one is determining the type of dyes contained in the provided product. The second one is to determine the amount or concentration of the dyes present. Lastly, a sample solution will be created with the required color, when compared to the commercial beverage. Developing cost-effective and viable technology to prepare food color and how it is applied in foods has become a challenge as well as a daily need. In this experiment, the dye for the new drink will be developed simply by copying the color profile a beverage that has been colored artificially. The two dyes that will be focused on are FD&C Red 40 and FD&C Blue 1. The principle of absorption spectroscopy will be applied here whereby the UV-Vis spectrometer will be used. By the help of Beer’s law and the use dilution formula, the calibration curves were obtained for the two dyes. The concentrations of the dyes in the Gatorade were then found by interpolation. It was determined that most food dyes occur in very small concentrations. In this exercise, the concentrations of Red 40 and Blue 1 dyes in the Gatorade were found to be 0.00001174M and 0.00001679M respectively. Introduction Food coloring involves the use of chemicals that add the intended color to the food. It is added often to drinks, condiments, and processed foods with the major aim of improving or maintaining the way a certain food appears. The main goal of this experiment is to come up with a dye solution that has the same composition as the one contained in a given commercial beverage. Synthesizing artificial dyes is cheaper compared to naturally occurring ones. Food dyes are important because they are used for numerous functions. They are used by manufacturers to enhance colors which occur naturally, providing the identity of foods, decorative purposes like in cakes color the colorless foods, provide consistency where varieties exist in the coloring, and in avoiding color losses resulting from environmental elements (Hunger, et al. 135). Food dyes that are commonly used are pure organic chemicals, therefore, their use is limited to very small concentrations. The dyes which have been approved to be used in foods, drugs, and cosmetics are referred to as FD&C dyes. They are mainly large organic molecules that are developed to enhance or color the foods. Food dyes are used in very low concentrations which have been tested to be safe when consumed by human beings (Hunger, et al. 111). Dyes occur either in natural form or artificial form. Natural dyes are obtained from natural sources such as minerals, animals, and plants while artificial ones are produced synthetically in the laboratory. Only seven artificial colorings have been approved for food, including FD$C Green No.3, Yellow No.6, Yellow No.5, Blue No.1, Blue No.2, Red No.3, and Red No.40 (Hunger, et al. 254). Dyes like Blue No.1 initially were made from coal tar, but currently, manufacturers produce it from an oil-base. Blue No.2, on the other hand, is synthesized from plant-based indigo and it is often used as a textile dye. This experiment is limited to the use of UV-Vis spectrometer in determining absorbencies of various samples. The Beer’s law will be used in calculating corresponding concentrations. The dilution formula will also be used in making dilutions of the solutions. From the plotted graphs, the concentrations will be easily matched to the absorbencies of various samples. Experimental section Materials and chemicals used The analytical equipment used was UV-Vis spectrometer. The lab apparatus that were used include pipettes, cuvettes, beakers, glass rods, volumetric flasks, and graduated cylinders. The chemicals and solutions used included the deionized water, Gatorade. Gatorade Fierce, blue 1 food dye, red 40 food dye, and solutions of 0.9× 10-4M red 40, and 0.2×10-4 M blue 1 dyes (Hunger, et al. 306). Methodology The Gatorade was put into a cuvette and ran through the spectrometer to determine the absorbance of the two dye concentrations. One of the Gatorade previously tested was obtained and separated and diluted into five different concentrations by using the dilution formula. They were then arranged in order for the determination of absorbencies of each. The absorbencies of each dilute solution were graphed against their concentrations using the Beer’s Law. The absorbencies of each concentration were then compared to the absorbance of the Gatorade to determine the concentration of the measured Gatorade dye. The same procedure was repeated for the second dye in the Gatorade (Hunger, et al. 329). In the second exercise, Gatorade was put into a cuvette and placed in the spectrometer and their absorptions identified using LoggerPro. From the linear graphs that were plotted earlier, the concentrations of Blue 1 and Red 40 dyes in the Gatorade were determined. Lastly, a volume of 0.65×101ml of 0.9× 10-4M Red 40 dye solution was made to find a concentration of 1.174×10-5M. Also, a volume of 4.2×101ml of 0.2×10-4M Blue 1 dye was made to get a concentration of 1.679×10-5M in a 0.5×102ml volumetric flask. The solutions made were placed into a cuvette and ran through the spectrometer. Their results were then recorded (Hunger, et al. 554). A sample of the Gatorade was placed into a cuvette and ran through the spectrometer and its results recorded. The results from the concentration and absorption of both the created solution and the Gatorade were compared to determine if they are the same. A dye solution was formed using 65×10-1 mL of 0.9× 10-4M Red 40 and 4.2×101 mL of 0.2×10-4M Blue 1 to create a solution similar to the concentrations of those two dyes in the Gatorade. The spectrometer was then used to measure the absorbencies of Red 40 and Blue 1 in the synthesized solution (Hunger, et al. 444). Results Table 1: Absorbencies of the Red 40 and Blue 1 dyes in a Gatorade Red 40 Blue 1 Absorbance 2.447×10-1 au 0.1186×101 au Concentration 1.174×10-5 M 1.679×10-5 M Table 2: Concentrations and Absorbencies of the diluted solutions of Red 40 and Blue 1 dyes Blue 1 Red 40 Concentration Absorbance Concentration Absorbance 0.2×10-4 0.2108×101 0.9×10-4 0.2002×101 1.667×10-5 0.175×101 7.5×10-5 0.1593×101 1.333×10-5 0.1367×101 0.6×10-4 0.1342×101 0.1×10-4 0.1054×101 4.5×10-5 8.913×10-1 6.67×10-6 5.593×10-1 0.3×10-4 5.6×10-1 From the values obtained in table 2, the two calibration curves of figure 1 and 2 were plotted as shown below: Figure 1: A graph of absorbance against concentration of different solutions containing the Red 40 dye Figure 2: A graph of absorbance against concentration of different solutions containing Blue 1 dye. Table 3: Concentrations of Red 40 and Blue 1 food dye in Gatorade-fierce Red 40 Blue 1 Absorbance (au) 2.447×10-1 0.1186×101 Concentration (M) 1.174x10-5 1.679x10-5 Table 4: A table showing comparisons between the absorbencies of the solutions containing Red 40 and Blue 1 dyes and their Gatorade Absorbance (a) Solution Blue 1 0.1741×101 Gatorade Blue 1 0.1186×101 Solution Red 40 2.851×10-1 Gatorade Red 40 2.447×10-1 The cuvette length was 1.2 cm and given that we had both the concentration from table 3 and absorbance from table 4, molar absorptivity was calculated using the Beer’s law, Absorbance = e Lc, where L is the path length and c is the concentration. Molar Absorptivity of Blue 1 = 9.4843×104 M-1cm-1 Molar Absorptivity of Red 40 = 1.9920×104 M-1cm-1 Discussion The UV-Vis spectrometer was used to determine the absorbencies of the diluted red 40 and Blue 1 dye solutions. This was facilitated by the use of dilution formula M1V1=M2V2. Five solutions were made with different concentrations and their corresponding absorbencies measured as shown in Table 2. Figures 1 and 2 show the two calibration curves plotted using obtained. Equations y=23905x-0.1566 and y=113812x-0.1499 were derived for red 40 and blue 1 dyes respectively (Hunger, et al. 514). From the two equations above, the concentrations of red 40 dye in the Gatorade were found to be 10174x10-5M and the concentration of Blue 1 dye in the Gatorade was found to be 1.679x10-5M. The absorbencies of the two dyes I a solution containing 65×10-1ml of 0.9×10-4M red 40 and 42×10-1ml of 0.2×10-4M blue 1 dye were measured and compared with the previous absorbencies of individual dyes obtained before. The molar absorptivities were also obtained using Beer’s law for each dye. However, the results did not exactly much with the previous data obtained (Hunger, et al. 559). This experiment was limited to the use of UV-Vis spectrometer which is not appropriate when working with solutions with very low concentrations. This influenced our results because we could not obtain matching absorbencies as expected. With the advanced of his experimental design by applying advanced instruments such as the ICP-MS and FT-IR, proper results will be obtained (Hunger, et al. 604). Conclusion Ultimately, the main goal of this experiment was to make a food dye by copying the color profile of a commercial Gatorade. However, the exact results were not achieved at the end. The absorbencies of the two dyes in the solution did not match exactly with their respective absorbencies in the Gatorade despite the fact that the concentrations of the solutions are very similar. This shows that the concentrations of dyes in Gatorade are very precise and they are difficult to obtain using the UV-Vis spectrometer instrument that was used in this experiment. The other errors resulted from the many dilutions that were done at every stage of the experiment. However, with the use of more sophisticated instruments such as ICP-MS, the exact results will be obtained since it can detect elements in a very low concentration with a lot of ease. This particular experiment if done in a lab with a state of the art instruments, it will be very successful and it can be applied in determining the food colorings of new products. Work Cited Hunger, Klaus, et al. Industrial Organic Pigments: Production, Properties, Application. Weinheim: Wiley-VCH, 2015. Print. Read More