PLEASE ANSWER URGENTLY: Adsorption- Dyeing Fabrics with Kool-Aid

[aliana5717]

Hello,
I am interested in doing this experiment in my school's science fair coming up. I have decided to look at how pH affects the adsorption of the dye but I have some things that I would like help on. I know that Kool-Aid already is acidic which may affect my results, so I am wondering about neutralizing the Kool-Aid empirically. Meaning I need to know the acidity of the Kool-Aid solution so that it can undergo a neutralization reaction, but how might I go about determining the pH? Also, I realize that Kool-Aid has a lot of other additives in the powder, is there a reason why Kool-Aid was chosen over using a standard food colouring? (Is there potentially a greater concentration of red 40 or would using food colour yield similar results?). In addition, is there a way for me to figure out how much dye or red 40 is present in the powder? For instance, x amount of red 40 per gram of Koolaid mixture. My last inquiry might be difficult to answer, however, I was looking into performing column chromatography to isolate the Kool-Aid dye, however, I don't know much about the chemical process, would doing chromatography on cherry Koolaid separate the red 40 for use or would all the other chemicals still be present and nothing really changes about the composition.
If anyone could help me with any of these questions that would be great!
Thank you so much,
Aliana

[Administrator note - project: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... adsorption

Please note that the red dye amount is noted in the project itself. I added this information to your previous threads. Experts in the forums are not able to provide immediate help with questions.]