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Vitamin C


The commercially sold juices would have most likely been exposed to the conditions leading to the deterioration in the content of vitamin C. In this experiment the independent variables were the juices that were being tested for their vitamin C content. The volume of each required to make a standard volume of DCPIP (dichlorophenolindophenol) change from blue to clear was measured. This was the dependent variable. These juices were titrated using a solution. The fixed variable of the experiment was the amount of DCPIP in each beaker and the room temperature. Both of these remained constant throughout the experiment. The importance of the room temperature being constant and not too high is because otherwise the vitamin C content of any and all the juices may have been altered, since vitamin C is heat labile. Moreover, if the temperature varied, the measured results might have varied also. The DCPIP was carefully made to the concentration of 0.1%. In each case 2 milliliters of DCPIP was taken. The amount, 2 milliliters of DCPIP, was chosen because it was not too much or too little an amount for the reactions to be seen clearly, without taking too much time. Vitamin C was first discovered because of its absence, during the age of exploration. Sailors on long sea voyages suffered very often from bleeding gums, loosened teeth, and aching joints. These were the symptoms of the disease now called scurvy. It is called scurvy because of "the presence of scurf's (or scales) on the skin". It was James Lind that showed that scurvy could be cured and prevented by eating "greens, fresh vegetables, and ripe fruits". However, it was the Polish biochemist, Casmir Funk, which named the missing group vitamines. He named this because he believed that they contained an amine group. Vitamines means "life amines". It is from the word that we get the word, vitamin. When vitamin C was finally isolated in 1925, it was given the name ascorbic acid because ascorbic means "no scurvy".


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