Chemistry Project 2013

Acid

Folic acid

What is Folic acid?
Folic acid is a water-soluble B vitamin. Since 1998, it has been added to cold cereals, flour, breads, pasta, bakery items, cookies, and crackers, as required by federal law.

What are the uses of Folic acid?
There are many uses of Folic acid such as:

• ·         Lowering homocysteine levels in people with kidney disease. About 85% of people with serious kidney disease have high levels of homocysteine. High levels of homocysteine have been linked to heart disease and stroke. Taking folic acid lowers homocysteine levels in people with serious kidney disease.
• ·         Reducing harmful effects of a medicine called methotrexate, which is sometimes used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. Taking folic acid seems to reduce nausea and vomiting, which are possible side effects of methotrexate treatment.
• ·         Reducing the risk of getting colorectal cancer. Getting more folic acid from the diet and supplements seems to lower the chances of developing colon cancer, but does not seem to help people who already have colon cancer.
• ·         Reducing the risk of pancreatic cancer.

What is ascorbic acid?

Ascorbic acid is also known as vitamin C is a vitamin. Some animals can make their own vitamin C, but people must get this vitamin from food and other sources.

What are the uses of ascorbic acid?
There are many uses of ascorbic acid such as:

• ·         Treatment and prevention of vitamin C deficiency, including a condition called “scurvy.”
• ·         Improving the way the body absorbs iron.
• ·         Treating a disease called tyrosinemia in new-borns when given as an injection
• ·         Treating the common cold. There is a lot of controversy about the effectiveness of vitamin C for treating the common cold. However, the majority of evidence shows that taking high doses of vitamin C might shorten the course of the cold by 1 to 1.5 days in some patients. But it is not effective for preventing the common cold.
• ·         Lowering high blood pressure. Taking vitamin C along with conventional high blood pressure medications appears to decrease systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure reading) by a small amount, but does not seem to decrease diastolic pressure (the bottom number). Taking vitamin C supplements alone, though, doesn’t seem to affect blood pressure.
• ·         Reducing the risk of gallbladder disease. There is some evidence that taking vitamin C might help to prevent gallbladder disease in women. But vitamin C doesn’t seem to have this effect in men.

Salt

What is sodium chloride?
Sodium Chloride is known as salt or table salt with the formula, NaCl.

What are the uses of sodium chloride?
There are many uses of sodium chloride such as:

• ·         Salt can be used in many different ways; back in the ancient times salt was used to mainly preserve foods likewise, salt are also being used to preserve food.
• ·         A common way to use salt in cold places which snows is to de-ice the roads that froze the roads.
• ·         Salt can also be found in rubber items or something else and also used in chemical industries to help create other compounds of some sort.

Alkali

What is sodium hydroxide?
Sodium Hydroxide is a base that is commonly known as lye or caustic soda. It absorbs moisture from the air and reacts with carbon dioxide to create sodium carbonate.

What are the uses of sodium hydroxide?
There are many uses of sodium hydroxide such as:

• ·         Sodium Hydroxide is use in unclogging drains.
• ·         It also comes in the form of lye soap which can be used to wash practically anything, from the dishes to face.
• ·         Sodium Hydroxide is also used quite a bit in food processing.  The compound is often used in steps for peeling fruits and vegetables, processing cocoa and chocolate, thickening of ice cream, poultry scalding and soda processing.
• Used in processes to make products including plastics, soaps rayon and textiles. 

What is potassium hydroxide?
Potassium hydroxide, also called caustic potash, is a chemical compound with the formula KOH.

What are the uses of potassium hydroxide?
There are many uses of potassium hydroxide such as:

• ·         Used in bleaches, soaps, and dyes.
• ·         Removing hair from animal hides.
• ·         Dissolving animal carcasses.
• ·         May be used in the processing of chocolate and cocoa, the production of caramel colour, and the washing and chemical peeling of fruits and vegetables.

Journey in collecting pictures:

 

We chose to go to Giant.

Below are the products we found for the chosen acids, salt and alkali. Sorry if the pictures are blur and some of the product would not have the back label.

Acids:

Folic acid:

Product 1: Banana Crunch

 Back label

(Apologies for the blur image)

Product 2: Honey Gold flakes

Back label

(Apologies for the blur image)

Ascorbic acid:

 

Product 1: Cornflakes

Back label

 

Product 2: Pineapple tidbits.

There is no back label for this product. 

However, from our research,all citrus fruit, in this case pineapple, contain ascorbic acid.

Salts

Product 1: Calbee Big Bag

Product 2: Jagabee

 

 Alkali:

Sodium hydroxide

 

Product 1: Colgate

 Back label
(Apologies for the blur image)

Product 2: Dettol body wash

Back label

Potassium Hydroxide:

Product 1: Mama Lemon dish wash

Product 2: Clorox

That is the end of the project.
We apologize for the late submission.

Chemistry project 2013

Done by: Cherrie Chin and Shalini 
Class: 3B 2013