Spinach Lab Report

LAB REPORT (CHEM 1300)

NAME: ADELEGAN JOSEPHINE OLUWATOSIN

STUDENT NUMBER: 7802251

LABORATORY SECTION: B01

ROTATION: 1

ROOM NUMBER: 206

LOCKER NUMBER: 1159

EXPERIMENT NUMBER 3: SPECTROSCOPIC ANALYSUS OF SPINACH

DATE AND TIME OF EXPERIMENT: MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 (PM)

(I circled AM instead of PM)

PURPOSE

The purpose of this experiment is to find the identity compounds present in spinach, and to determine the iron content of spinach by observation, experiments and proper evaluation.

RESULT

Part A: Absorption spectrum of spinach extract

Observations: Solution of ethanol and spinach leaves was light greenish in color. I shone a blue laser pen light on the cuvette and saw a red-pinkish light.

Fig1

(I’m not using

This suggests that purple light is absorbed by the spinach extract due to the high absorbance at this wavelength. The graph is lowest in the 500 – 600 nm range which corresponds with the wavelength of green to yellow light and suggests that green to yellow light isn’t absorbed by spinach extract very well. There is a peak around the 670nm range but it does not reach the absorbance level of purple light spectrum. 670 nm corresponds with the wavelength of red to orange light

The red-pinkish light was due to the emission of photons which occurs when electrons become excited, making them reach high energy levels and when they relax, they return back to their ground state and emit some energy as light Electrons become excited when exposed to light, causing them to reach higher energy levels. When they begin to relax and drop back down to their ground state, they emit some of the energy as light (Olmsted). In respect to the spinach extract, I saw a red-pinkish light which mixed with the blue light of the UV laser pen makes purple light which is in the range of 450 – 495 nm and the same as the peak where the spinach has a very high absorbance which makes this wavelength to be