360Science™: Analysis of Food Dyes in Beverages

In this laboratory, students will use spectrophotometry and graphical analysis to determine the concentration of a dye in a sports drink. Students will prepare a series of standard dilutions of an FD&C dye stock solution and will measure the absorbance of each. The results will be analyzed graphically to obtain a Beer’s law calibration curve of absorbance versus concentration. Using this calibration, students will determine the concentration of dye in a beverage sample.