Dehydration of sugar experiment - urgent help please.

Ask questions about projects relating to: aerodynamics or hydrodynamics, astronomy, chemistry, electricity, electronics, physics, or engineering

Moderators: kgudger, bfinio, MadelineB, Moderators

Locked
terrizah
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Apr 26, 2018 1:19 pm
Occupation: Student

Dehydration of sugar experiment - urgent help please.

Post by terrizah »

My name is Terri and I live in Pretoria, South Africa. I want to do an experiment in which I will be using sulfuric acid to dehydrate 3 different types of sugars and not just 1. I can't seem to find any places nearby that sell sulfuric acid. I wanted to find out ways I could manipulate the experiment (maybe by changing the acid used into one that would be easier to get and provide similar results at the same time) or if I could just please have suggestions on how or what I could change the project into (something similar).

Thank you.
LeungWilley
Former Expert
Posts: 409
Joined: Mon Jan 12, 2009 11:15 pm
Occupation: Electrical Engineer
Project Question: n/a
Project Due Date: n/a
Project Status: Not applicable

Re: Dehydration of sugar experiment - urgent help please.

Post by LeungWilley »

Hi Terri,
Sounds like an interesting experiment! You may want to try to look for other dehydrating agent such as those listed here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category: ... ing_agents

As always, please be careful when dealing with these chemicals as most of them are very corrosive.
Good Luck!
Willey
terrizah
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Apr 26, 2018 1:19 pm
Occupation: Student

Re: Dehydration of sugar experiment - urgent help please.

Post by terrizah »

Thank you so so so much!
rpeteranderl
Posts: 14
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2017 5:02 pm
Occupation: Teacher

Re: Dehydration of sugar experiment - urgent help please.

Post by rpeteranderl »

Hi Terri -

I hope you are aware that anything that can dehydrate sugar can do horrible things to you or any other living thing. Concentrated sulfuric acid will do things you never even thought of, and that makes it harder to take proper precautions. In an undergrad chemistry lab I tried to filter sulfuric acid through a paper filter, and it just turned the filter into a carbonized precipitate. If you are actually going forward with your project, make sure that you wear proper safety clothing (rubber apron, lab coat that you can take off very quickly if need be, heavy gloves (Nitrile), googles and maybe a face shield). I have been cavalier about some chemistry safety protocols in my days, but I have healthy dose of respect for sulfuric acid.

Having said that, you can get ~30-35% (sat.) sulfuric acid in the form of battery acid (It is used in lead/acid batteries in cars, etc.). The water in the diluted acid can be removed by boiling it off (Boiling sulfuric acid - the sheer thought of it makes me very safety conscious), as described in this protocol http://www.amazingrust.com/Experiments/ ... H2SO4.html. Good luck if you are going ahead with this, and be careful. On the other hand, they let us work with concentrated sulfuric acid in 10th grade, if I recall correctly, and nobody got killed or disfigured.
Locked

Return to “Grades 9-12: Physical Science”