All Trans Lycopene Lab Report

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The purpose of this experiment was to determine the amount of all-trans-lycopene present in a can of tomato paste in order to determine the quality of the tomato paste. This was achieved by proper separation of lycopene from the other pigments in the tomato paste through column chromatography. The column was able to achieve proper separation given the high polarity of the packing, alumina. Given alumina’s high polarity, the pigments present in the tomato paste with a greater polarity would travel more slowly through the column than the molecules with a lower polarity. Due to the fact that each pigment presented as a different color, in addition to variations in polarity, the separation of lycopene was made possible. The yellow band, composed of carotenes, traveled the quickest through the column, suggesting it was the least polar pigment present. If it were more polar, it …show more content…

According to Shi (2010), “lycopene in fresh tomato fruits occurs essentially in the all-trans configuration.” Given this information, the percentage of all-trans-lycopene obtained from this experiment was low, 59.09%. However, this data does not necessarily reflect poorly on the canned tomato itself. Given that lycopene will isomerize if presented to heat or light, the isomerization could have occurred during the experiment, rather than during processing of the tomato paste. The isomerization of all-trans-lycopene to 13-cis-lycopene occurs through an additional input of energy that excites electrons; this causes the electrons to transition into a higher energy state. This transition causes lycopene to take on a bent shape, rather than its all-trans linear shape. However, since there is no method to determine if this isomerization occurred during the experiment or while the product underwent processing, there is no definite conclusion on the quality of the canned tomato product used in this

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