Orange Juice Experiment

Aim

To determine whether orange juice has more electrolytes than well-known sport drinks

Background Information

In my experiment, I am testing the conductance of different drinks. This relates to the amount of electrolytes they have within them. The drinks that I am testing are Maximus, PowerAde, Orange Juice, distilled water and Tap water. I choose these drinks because there has been much discussion whether sports drinks actually affect the performance of a normal person, relating to the amount of electrolytes in the substance. The body loses electrolytes during exercise through sweat, these sports drinks are meant to replace these lost electrolytes to allow the person doing the exercise to perform at their best.

Electrolytes are charged

substances that are produced by a salt dissolving into a solution. Having dissolved into a solution, these electrolytes can conduct electricity that is why they are called ‘electrolytes’. These Electrolytes are essential for life; they are needed for functions in the human body like energy production, nerve transmission, muscle contractions, pH balance, fluid balance and more.

Sports drinks are beverages that are meant to help people rehydrate sometimes during but mainly after exercise. These kinds of drinks are high in carbohydrates, as they need to give the person who is drinking it more energy to perform better. There are different types of sports drinks but I have only chosen two drinks that are of the same types to compare properly, the Maximus and PowerAde are isotonic drinks. Isotonic drinks are drinks that replace required fluids throughout the body. This is good for rehydration because after exercises, an isotonic drink can make a person more quickly hydrated than normal drinks/water. Isotonic drinks also contain similar amounts concentration of salt and sugar as in the human body; this shows that it is a good product to perform the function of replacing fluids throughout the body.

I have decided to test distilled water for a controlled test.

I would predict that distilled water would get next to nothing in conductivity due to it being completely pure water. Pure water as absolutely nothing in it other than H20. This means that distilled water would note have any minerals or chemicals that may be able to conduct electricity unlike tap water, which does have these minerals and chemicals. Tap water obtains minerals to safe from diseases and bad infections to other people, this is a necessary action for other people`s safety.

Hypothesis

My hypothesis for this experiment was that the sports drinks would be the substance with more electrolytes, in particular the Maximus sports drink as other people who have conducted experiments of sports drink have found Maximus to have more electrolytes to other sport drink brands such as PowerAde

Equipment
The main/ essential things are:
• Digital multimeter/ ammeter
• Alligator clip leads
• Copper wire, bare, 24-gauge (1.5 meters)
• 9 V

battery
• 9 V battery clip
There are other things that are needed like:
• Disposable plastic straw
• Scissors
• Beakers/Small plastic, glass/or ceramic bowls (Must not be metal)
o Use a different one for each liquid you test or use one bowl repeatedly being careful to wash and wipe it thoroughly between liquids.
• Masking tape or other materials for creating labels
• Permanent pen or marker
• Distilled water (dH2O) (room temperature)
• Tap water, room temperature
• Sports drink(s) of your choice (room temperature)
• Orange juice of your choice (room temperature)
• Paper towels
• Lab notebook
Procedure
1.

Using the scissors, cut a 5cm piece of a straw and wrap two separate lines of copper wire around the piece of straw at both ends, make sure that there is at least 5cm remaining of the copper wire after it is wrapped around the straw (like in the image to the right)
2. Begin to construct the circuit:

Constructing the Circuit:
1. Gather the multimeter, wires, alligator clips, copper straw (above), 9V battery and 9V battery clip
2. Connect the 9V battery to the 9V battery clip and connect the negative wire of the battery clip to a wire, then connect this wire to the copper straw using the alligator clips on the end of the wire
3. Attach the other alligator clip to the other side of the copper straw which will the connect back to the input of the multimeter through a wire
4. Finish off the circuit by connecting the output of the multimeter to the positive of the battery clip (if this is completely correctly, it should look like the image

below)

3. Collect the items you are going to test in your experiment (Drinks: sports drink, orange juice, etc.) and pour the substance you will test first into a beaker
4. Place the copper straw into the substance and make sure it is completely submerged
5. Make sure that your multimeter is set to the right setting that is able to collect accurate data (Current)
6. Off the readings of the multimeter/ammeter, collect the data on the conductance of the substance. (For measuring the conductance of these sports drinks, it is best to measure it in Milliamps E.g. 200m, for distilled water it is best to measure it in micro amps to get a clearer measurement)
7. Repeat this experiment for a more fair test by getting similar results

Results

Tests: substances: Test 1 2 3 4
Maximus 32 31.5 31.8 30.9
PowerAde 14.5 16.7 17.0 16.5
Orange Juice 34 34.5 31 33
Distilled Water 0.1 0.2 0.2 0.1
Tap Water 2 2.2 2.1 2.1

Conclusion

Referring back to the aim, the end result was that the orange juice was more conductive, therefore obtaining more electrolytes than all the other test drinks. This also included sports drinks specifically made to rehydrate, replace fluid in the body and provide more electrolytes for the body to function in all places needing electrolytes.

Discussion

Relating to the results, I found it interesting to why the orange was more conductive or having more electrolytes to other drinks such as the sports Maximus and PowerAde. After all the results were collected I wondered why the orange juice was able to conduct more than the sports drinks and I thought it might be the fact that orange is an acid. Being an acid may have affected it ability to conduct.