Name: Samuel Files

CHM 206 Section: 01

Vitamin C Writing Assignment

Materials and Methods

This experiment utilized 500mg vitamin C tablets, Potassium Iodide, Potassium Iodate,
Hydrochloric Acid, and starch in a 1% solution. Firstly, I weighed my weighing dish and then weighed the
dish with the tablet inside of it. After that, I crushed up the tablet in a mortar and pestle, and then
weighed the powder in the dish. I then transferred this solution to a 100mL volumetric flask and added
deionized water. After this, I transferred this solution to a 250mL beaker and prepared four 250mL
Erlenmeyer flasks, transferring 20mL of the vitamin C solution to each, as well as 15mL 0.20M KI, 5ml
1.0M HCl, and one “dropper” of 1% starch solution. With the Erlenmeyer flasks prepared, I filled a 50mL
burette with 0.0100M KIO3 solution for the titration. Then I started the titration and after finishing the
first titration I repeated it two additional times, to ensure my titrations agreed within 2% of one another.
My hope was that the vitamin C, KI, and KIO 3 solutions would combine and provide me proof of
elemental iodine (I2).

Results and Discussion

The purpose of this experiment was to, using a titration, determine the concentration of vitamin
C inside a “500mg” vitamin C tablet. I collected data by observing the change in color within the three
Erlenmeyer flasks containing my solution when KIO 3 was added. After collecting my data, I used a variety
of calculations to reach my conclusion.

While titrating I noticed that at times the solution would turn to a deep purple color, but after
swirling the flask a few times, this color went away. I only saw minimal change in overall lasting color
from when I started, but at the end the flasks all had a very light purple hue. This light purple indicated
to me that the experiment had been successful, and this is where I stopped my titrations. This fact may
be why my results were not quite as accurate as I may have liked.

The table below highlights a significant amount of the information that I collected from my
titrations. It speaks to the amount of KIO3 solution used in each titration, in mL, and talks about how
much elemental iodine was generated. Using this data, I was able to average out much of my data and
come to my main conclusion, that one vitamin C tablet contained approximately 427.80mg of ascorbic
acid. I do not believe that this result is 100% accurate as I am aware that some errors may have been
made during titration. However, the finding that a 500mg tablet would not have a pure 500mg of
ascorbic acid in it does in fact make sense.

Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3

Initial Burette Volume 0.01mL 16.19mL 0.01mL

(mL)
 Final Burette Volume 16.19mL 32.39mL 16.19mL
(mL)

Volume KIO3 used 16.19mL 16.20mL 16.19mL

(mL)

Mmol I2 Generated 0.4857 mmol 0.4860 mmol 0.4857 mmol

Average ascorbic acid 0.4858 mmol

in one aliquot (mmol)

Average mg. ascorbic 85.56mg

acid in one aliquot

Mg of ascorbic acid in 427.80mg

100mL solution

Mg of ascorbic acid in 514.25mg

original tablet

Another indicator that my results were not entirely accurate is the fact that somehow my tablet
weight came out to be 14.25mg over what was expected. If performed again, I would ensure that the
titrations were more certain, as I believe I cut off titrating sooner than necessary. Theoretically, I should
have had closer to a perfect 100mg of ascorbic acid per aliquot, but I was about 15mg away from that
ideal figure.