Determination of Vitamin C

Concentration by Titration

Zea, Phattarnan Varrathyarom

Preme, Ravisara Karnjanolarn
Yok, Piyamon Piyabootr
Mind, Poonnapha Kittiratanaviwat
Nice, Sirirat Jittakajornkait
10-06
Date: 18 June 2015
Introduction:

Vitamins and minerals are a necessary nutrients for human and living things that can be
commonly found in fruits. Vitamin C is the well-known vitamin that is contained in many types of
fruits. For this experiment, we would like to determine the concentration of vitamin C in fresh
kiwi and the kiwi that passed the food preserving, such as frozen and dehydrated kiwi. The
technique that is used to figure out the concentration of the unknown solution by adding the
titrant (the known solution) from the burette to the analyte (the unknown solution) in the flask
until the reaction occurs or the color of the solution in the flask changes. In this experiment, the
solutions that we need to observe are the different quantities of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) in
fresh, frozen and dehydrated kiwis. We only did the fresh and dehydrated kiwis. We add the
starch and distilled water to the flask of kiwi juice and dehydrated kiwi juice. We use the iodine
as the titrant. The iodine is dropped from the burette until the solution in flask changes the color.
When we add the iodine to the solution of ascorbic acid, the redox reaction occurs. After the
ascorbic acid is oxidized to be dehydroascorbic acid and the iodine is reduced to be iodide ions,
the iodide ions can react with the starch we added in form of changing color. The amount of the
iodine that we used can determine the concentration of vitamin C or ascorbic acid for each
solution of kiwi juices, and we can compare the differences between concentration of three
types of kiwi. In addition, we redo the experiment three times for each to make the experiment
more accurate.
Purpose: To observe and compare the concentration of ascorbic acid in fresh and dehydrated
kiwis.
Hypothesis: If we perform the titration correctly, then the amount of Vitamin C in kiwi will
decrease from fresh to dehydrated.

Material:
-

Lab Coats, Gloves, Safety goggles

Closed footwear

Burette and Stand

100 mL or 200 mL volumetric flask
20 mL pipette
10 mL and 100 mL measuring cylinders
250 mL conical flask
Starch indicator solution
Iodine solution

Procedure:
1. Cut a 100 g sample into small pieces and grind.
2. Add 10 mL portions of distilled water several times while grinding the sample, each time
removing the liquid into 100 mL volumetric flask.
3. Strain the ground fruit through cheesecloth, rinsing with distilled water.
4. Make the extracted solution up to 100 mL with distilled water.
5. Pipette 20 mL of the sample solution into a 250 mL conical flask
6. Add about 40 mL of distilled water.
7. Add 1 mL of starch indicator solution.
8. Titrate the sample with the iodine solution. The endpoint of the titration is identified as the first
permanent trace of a color change.
9. Repeat the titration 3x.
10. Repeat the titration procedure for either the dehydrated fruit or the frozen fruit

Data Table:
Fresh Kiwi
Volume

Trial 1(mL)

Trial 2(mL)

Trial 3(mL)

Average

Iodine

5.45

5.20

4.0

4.883

Sample

20

20

20

20

Dehydrated Kiwi

Volume

Trial 1(mL)

Trial 2(mL)

Trial 3(mL)

Average

Iodine

10.40

8.85

6.15

8.466

Sample

20

20

20

20

The Calculations
Fresh Kiwi

Dehydrated Kiwi

1. The amount of grams in volume of

1. The amount of grams in volume of

sample

sample

624.73/1.25 = x/0.020

103.24/0.800 = x/0.020

x = 9.99568 grams

x = 2.581 grams

2. The number of moles (Vitamin C)

2. The number of moles (Vitamin C)

0.005 = y/0.0048833

0.005 = y/0.008466

y = 0.000024416 moles

y = 0.0000423 moles

3. The number of moles per gram of Kiwi

3. The number of moles per gram of Kiwi

y/x = 0.000024416/9.99568

y/x = 0.000024416/9.99568

= 0.0000024427 moles/grams

= 0.000016401 moles/grams

Analyzing Results:
1.) Which form of food preservation contained the highest amount of Vitamin C (ascorbic acid)?
In this experiment, we found that dehydration is the most effective form of food
preservation that contained the highest amount of vitamin C. As a result, we asked the
information from other groups about the frozen kiwi which we didnt do the experiment on that
part. We also got information that dehydrated kiwi has higher amount of vitamin C than frozen
kiwi. According to the mistake, the dehydrated kiwi contains the least amount of water, it means
that the concentration of kiwi juice and concentration of vitamin C are more than others. Fresh

and frozen kiwi have both water inside and water that was just added to the solution. The
concentration of fresh and frozen kiwi will be reduced because of the amount of initial water.
Therefore, if we set up the amount of water after added in each one equally, the frozen and
fresh kiwi should have more concentration of vitamin C than the result showed, and have more
than dehydrated kiwi.
2.) Were you hypotheses correct? Explain. What might be some reasons to explain why your
hypothesis were not correct?
Our hypothesis wasnt correct, in the experiment, the dehydrated kiwi contained more
Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) than fresh kiwi. Actually, the dehydrated kiwi should have less vitamin
C(ascorbic acid) than fresh kiwi because dehydrated kiwi lost some of its vitamins including
vitamin C during the dehydration process. The water evaporates out of the fruit during drying,
the fruit shrinks in size and the remaining nutrients become more concentrated. Some reasons
to explain why our hypothesis was wrong are there were some mistakes during the experiment
in the preparation process, we should use the same amounts of kiwi in grams and same volume
as the control because when we mix the kiwi (all of types) with the water, the dehydrated kiwi
had the highest ascorbic acid concentration and it could be the reason why the result wasnt
accurate.
3.) From this experiment, do you think you could predict the amount of all vitamins and minerals
in a food prepared with the different preservation techniques, explain?
We cannot predict all vitamins and minerals in a food prepared with the different
preservation techniques because we can only determine some of vitamins since there are 2
types of vitamin; water-soluble and fat-soluble vitamin. We need to use other techniques and
tools in order to determine amount of fat-soluble because we cant mix them with water and
titrate them like we did in this experiment.

Conclusion
Fruit is one type of food that contains many types of nutrients, especially vitamins and
minerals. Vitamin C can be found in most of the fruits, and it is necessary for humans and living
things. Vitamin C is also well-known as ascorbic acid. The one method for determining the
quantity of Vitamin C in fruits is called titration. The titration is a process of finding the unknown
substances that the experiment wants to know. The process will be completed by adding the
known substances which can react with the unknown substances that we would like to know.
When the reaction occurs, we can observe the changes by the color of unknown substances.
For experiment, we use Iodine solution to determine the different concentration of Vitamin C
between fresh and dehydrated kiwi. The Iodine solution does not only react with Vitamin C, but
also react with starch that we added to both kiwi juices. The Vitamin C that is contained in both
kinds of kiwi will be oxidized to be dehydroascorbic acid while the iodine is reduced to be iodide
ions. After redox reaction occurs, the iodide ions will react with starch and kiwi juice that was
mixed with starch will change their color. Therefore, the more iodine that used, the more
concentration inside.
Firstly, we measured 20 mL of fresh and dehydrated kiwi juice, 40 mL of distilled water,
and 1 mL of starch (to indicate the color when we added iodine). After that, we dropped the
Iodine from a burette into the solution of kiwi juice, distilled water, and starch. When the solution
changed its color into a completely different color. This reaction called the endpoint of titration,
then repeated it for three times (both fresh and dehydrated kiwi juice).
After we have done the experiment, we calculated the concentration and also number of
moles of Vitamin C in both fresh and dehydrated kiwi juices. Moreover, we took the result of the
frozen kiwi juice from the other groups. It showed that our hypothesis is incorrect because the
result showed that dehydrated kiwi juice have the highest concentration of Vitamin C. We
calculated and knew that the number of moles in Vitamin C of dehydrated kiwi juice was greater

than the number of moles of fresh kiwi juice. The fresh kiwi should contain more Vitamin C than
dehydrated kiwi because the dehydration process remove the water that might mixed with
amount of vitamin C. The result of frozen kiwi juice, concentration of Vitamin C was less than
the fresh kiwi juice.
During this experiment, we did not do the experiment precisely as we should. The first
mistake was the amount of Iodine that we added into the solution. We firstly poured too much
Iodine into the solution of fresh kiwi juice. So, the color of juice become darker than what we
expected. Moreover, we spilled the water while pouring them into the volumetric flask that
contains the solution of fresh juice kiwi and starch. The amount of water may affect the solution
inside, and also the calculation part in comparing the result. Additionally, there are some
mistakes in preparing material process. Because of the amount of water inside the different kiwi
that dehydrated kiwi have less than others from removing water in dehydration process.
Therefore, the amount of water that we added will affect the concentration of each type of kiwi
juice. The water inside of fresh and frozen kiwi and the amount water that we added will have
more water inside the solution. The concentration of vitamin C in the fresh and frozen kiwi
become completely lower than the inside dehydrated kiwi that was almost dried. It caused the
inaccurate results. Therefore, if we would like the accurate result, we need to set the amount of
water equally in each flask.
During the experiment, we have learned how to do the processes of titration accurately,
and also doing the calculation of the concentration of vitamin in kiwi juice and also number of
moles. Furthermore, we realized that the best way to preserve food is to freeze it. According to
the mistake and the result, amount of Vitamins left in juice can concluded that the frozen kiwi
have similar concentration to the fresh kiwi. Beside the frozen process, the dehydration is the
good alternative process that is safe and good for long storage.