im doing a science fair project on sugar content in bananas:green, yellow, or brown i already kno which banana contains more sugar what i want to kno now is what would i do to find it out ? what procedures would i do? what materials would i use? i want to kno how to perform this experiment. soooo plzzz help me on how im supposed 2 do it
2006-08-28 12:05:10 · 4 answers · asked by mrsmoss3791 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
To measure the amount of sugar in fruit, you'll need a refractometer. These are used by winemakers to measure the amount of sugar in grapes.
To measure the sugar, follow the directions. As with any science experiment, you'll need to do several experiment "trials". Make sure you hold the other conditions for the bananas constant - the same temperature, the same basic size, the same variety, etc. Get three or more green bananas and measure the sugar. Do the same procedure on the yellow and brown bananas, making sure to clean your equipment well between each trial.
Make a chart and a graph of your results.
You can buy refractors online, by the way. There are some really expensive ones, but you can find one for your experiment for about $50.
2006-08-28 12:22:47 · answer #1 · answered by Science Mom 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
there's an easy way and there's a harder way to do it. First of all, do you have any access to a laboratory with an HPLC ? If so, just run your sample and you should get the exact sugar concentration. These are $100,000+ equipments so only colleges and research facilities may have them.
Other than they, you can assay for glucose by doing a reaction involving concentrated sulfuric acid (have an expert do that part for you). Just add the piece of banana (add the same weight in all cases) and add some sulfuric acid and it should turn brown. The browner it is, the more sugar it has. Becareful and do not do this one alone.
2006-08-28 12:13:25 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I have never tried this, but maybe you could try fermentation,
Brewers yeast will produce co2, the more sugar in the banana the more co2 will be produced.
mix your banana with distilled water and brewers yeast, use the same amount of banana, yeast and pureed banana for each sample, keep the project samples at about body temperature for a day, measure the amount of gas each sample produces, the one with most gas will have the most sugar.
2006-08-29 00:26:04 · answer #3 · answered by treb67 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
not really a physics question. if you want to test chemical composition such as sugar levels, then you should ask in chemistry
2006-08-28 12:12:06 · answer #4 · answered by promethius9594 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋