acknowledgement

I owe my thanks to our principal for

providing laboratory facilities. And a
tone of thanks to our chemistry
teacher for her valuable guidance and
providing the required apparatus to
perform my project work. And a lot
of thanks to my friends,

classmates

and family members who encouraged

me in doing this project successfully.

Aim
To determine
the percentage of
Caffeine in different samples
of tea..

Apparatus Required

CHEMICALS REQUIRED
1.Basic Lead Nitrate

2. Lead Oxide

3. Chlofororm

4. Distilled water

5. Animal Charcoal

6. Dilute Mineral Acid

Procedure
In a litre round bottom flask 40gm of first sample was taken.
To this about 250ml of distilled water was added and the
contents were refluxed for about an hour.
The brown color extracted is separated by decantation
followed by filtration when still hot.
Lead acetate is dissolved into water in 250ml beaker. The
solution is boiled and the lead oxide is added slowly to the
boiling solution.
The filtrate thus obtained is added drop wise to this extract
till no precipitation occurs.
The filtrate is treated with animal charcoal to decolorize
extract.
The clear solution is extracted with 100mg of chloroform
after separating by filtration.
The total solution is taken into distillation flask to remove
the solvent by distillation.
The residue left in the flask is dissolved in minimum amount
of hot water and the dissolved contents are transferred to the
boiling tube.
The solution is kept for slow crystallization.
When the white crystalline solid comes out of the solution it
is filtered, dried in desiccators and weighed.
The above procedure is repeated for all samples of tea.

The chemistry involved in

the experiment is as
follows:
Caffeine being soluble in water goes into the solution on
refluxing.
Lead oxide when added to lead acetate solution helps lead
to precipitate and come out in the form of insoluble lead
sulphate as it is a basic oxide.
The activated charcoal adsorbs the coloured pigments from
the brown coloured solution.
Chloroform is used for extracting the caffeine as it is a
more soluble in CHCl3 than in cold water.
On boiling caffeine being more volatile evaporates leaving
a white mass behind.

On adding more chloroform and by gradual evaporation we

get nice crystalline caffeine.

OBSERVATION

About 49gm of each sample was taken. The

contents of caffeine of the samples were noted and
their presence in terms of percentage was
calculated.

NAME OF CAFFEINE PERCENTAGE TASTE

THE TEA CONTENTS COMPOSITION
VARIETY
RED
LABEL

0.029

0.0725%

MILD AND
SOOTHING

TAJ
MAHAL

0.05

0.0125%

SLIGHTLY
STRONG

TATA
TEA
LIPTON

0.036

0.047

0.09%

0.1175%

STRONG
PLEASANT

VERY
STRONG

Bibliography
1. Help from internet.
2. Information from
library.
3. Help from teachers.

Chemistry
INVERSTIGATORY
Project

Chemistry
INVERSTIGATORY
Project

INDEX
CERTIFICATE.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.
AIM.
INTRODUCTION.
APPARATUS &
CHEMICALS REQUIRED.
PROCEDURE.
OBSERVATION.
INFERENCE.

INTRODUCTION
Tea is a highly popular drink all over the world.
A cup of tea is often taken as a mindfreshener. This can be primarily attributed to
the presence of a stimulant called CAFFEINE in
the tea. Besides this tea also contains various
polyphenol compounds that act as flavorings
agents. Relative contents of these compounds
result in different varieties available under
different brand names. The quality of tea
leaves also greatly influence of the taste of the
tea. Tea is popular name of the tropical plant
whose botanical name is Camellia thea. India
is the largest producer of good quality tea and
it is mainly grown in slope of hills of Assam,
West Bengal and Nilgiri Hills. A cup of Indian
tea contains 80mg of caffeine which is the
indispensable content of tea.
Caffeine is a nitrogenous organic compound
of alkaloid group. These groups of substances
have a marked physiological effect on the
human body when taken in considerable
amount.

It is widely used as a stimulant of the central

nervous system and also has hypotonic and
sleep inducing effect. In this case the
compound is less soluble in organic solvents
than in hot water. It is odorless but even a
small amount have a very bitter taste.
Caffeine is the main flavoring agent in the tea
leaves. It is obtained from the decaffeination
of tea dust and also from coffee. It exerts a
simulative effect on the cerebral cortex but
later has a depressant and narcotic action. It
is also useful in cardiac dropsy. An abnormal
sate arising from caffeine is called caffeinism.
The main symptoms are nervousness,

Insomnia and Tachycardia. It is used in

medicines in the form of chlorides and
nitrates.
In this project we will do a careful study of
different brands of tea and will extract
and carefully analyze their caffeine
content. The result would thus tell the
exact content of caffeine present in
different samples analyzed.