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Topic: How can I measure the salt content in snack?  (Read 10883 times)

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Offline shuryanc

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How can I measure the salt content in snack?
« on: April 09, 2010, 09:26:32 AM »
How can I measure the salt content in snack? The snack may be solid(chips) or liquid(but i can't think which snack is liquid ;D)
What experiment should I do? One of the possible experiment i think may be titration
However, i don't know how to export the salts from the food.
I know the common salt we intake is sodium chloride, but is there any experiment can determine it's content in the snacks? OR is there experiment can determine the salt with different types in the snacks?

Offline nj_bartel

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Re: How can I measure the salt content in snack?
« Reply #1 on: April 09, 2010, 12:39:34 PM »
Dissolve in water what you can, filter, then work with solubility rules.

Offline Grundalizer

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Re: How can I measure the salt content in snack?
« Reply #2 on: April 09, 2010, 12:49:37 PM »
I think a good one to do would be measure the salt concentration in Gatorade, as it has electrolyes (Na+ Cl- etc K+ etc).

You could do a potentiometric titration with silver nitrate (which would give you Chloride concentration) but that requires building a little pH like electrolyte cell to hook up to a voltmeter to measure the potential of the solution to find the endpoint, since there is no sudden color change like in other titrations.

Another thing would be to just use a pH meter that also measures salinity.  That sort of takes the real work out of the equation, as all you do is stick the electrode into the gatorade, wait 30 seconds, and take a reading. 

Are you in highschool?  Is this for a project?  What kind of equipment do you have access to?

Offline shuryanc

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Re: How can I measure the salt content in snack?
« Reply #3 on: April 09, 2010, 10:58:15 PM »
Dissolve in water what you can, filter, then work with solubility rules.

Is it just dissolve and filter, then evaporate and weight the mass?



I think a good one to do would be measure the salt concentration in Gatorade, as it has electrolyes (Na+ Cl- etc K+ etc).

You could do a potentiometric titration with silver nitrate (which would give you Chloride concentration) but that requires building a little pH like electrolyte cell to hook up to a voltmeter to measure the potential of the solution to find the endpoint, since there is no sudden color change like in other titrations.

Another thing would be to just use a pH meter that also measures salinity.  That sort of takes the real work out of the equation, as all you do is stick the electrode into the gatorade, wait 30 seconds, and take a reading. 

Are you in highschool?  Is this for a project?  What kind of equipment do you have access to?

Do you mean that do the titration with silver nitrate as titre, then find the end point by using a voltmeter? Is it just insert the positive wire and negative wire in the same titrate(Gatorade)? How can I know it is the end-pt from the voltmeter? When potential is zero?

For the second experiment, after I measure the pH, I can find the concentration of H+, but how can i find the concentration of Na+? Is the equation: Cl- + H+ -> HCl
Yes, I am in highschool and teacher provides us our own sets of the equipment.
You are right that this is a project and teacher ask us that to search from web or think ourselves.

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Re: How can I measure the salt content in snack?
« Reply #4 on: April 10, 2010, 04:17:15 AM »
Determination of just Cl- can be not enough, especially if there is a mixture of Na+/K+ as counterions (like in gatorade).

Then, it is probably the simplest thing to do.

http://www.titrations.info/precipitation-titration-argentometry
ChemBuddy chemical calculators - stoichiometry, pH, concentration, buffer preparation, titrations.info

Offline shuryanc

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Re: How can I measure the salt content in snack?
« Reply #5 on: April 10, 2010, 04:38:10 AM »
Determination of just Cl- can be not enough, especially if there is a mixture of Na+/K+ as counterions (like in gatorade).

Then, it is probably the simplest thing to do.

http://www.titrations.info/precipitation-titration-argentometry

It's ok for the liquid. And still need one more method for the solid. The questions above are the things that i don't understand. ???

Offline shuryanc

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Re: How can I measure the salt content in snack?
« Reply #6 on: April 10, 2010, 11:32:49 AM »
Also, can you explain more(e.g. part of the procedure)? I hope I can learn more.

Offline billnotgatez

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Re: How can I measure the salt content in snack?
« Reply #7 on: April 10, 2010, 05:43:04 PM »
I am trying to find out from a food chemist what the standard method for salt content determination is.

Offline shuryanc

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Re: How can I measure the salt content in snack?
« Reply #8 on: April 11, 2010, 11:11:33 AM »
If I use cheese as sample, except the traditional titration(by using burette), are there any experiment can determine it's salt content? How can the result brought out by potentiometric titration?

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Re: How can I measure the salt content in snack?
« Reply #9 on: April 11, 2010, 04:03:27 PM »
The only difference between traditional titration and potentiometric titration is in the way you detect endpoint, everything else is identical.
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