Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I am doing a project in determining how much iron is in cereal. On the research that I have done it says to add cereal and water to a blender and as it is blending to put magnet on side of container and the iron forms. I am not sure what I am doing wrong. Also on the "instructions" it says to use Total cereal, but because I live in Canada that cereal is not available to us here. Could it be the type of cereal that I am using (the highest i have is 60% iron). Any suggestions would be helpful.

icelady wrote:I am doing a project in determining how much iron is in cereal. On the research that I have done it says to add cereal and water to a blender and as it is blending to put magnet on side of container and the iron forms. I am not sure what I am doing wrong. Also on the "instructions" it says to use Total cereal, but because I live in Canada that cereal is not available to us here. Could it be the type of cereal that I am using (the highest i have is 60% iron). Any suggestions would be helpful.

Could you give the reference for your "instructions"

the site is http://www.chemmovies.unl.edu/chemistry ... D007c.html

icelady wrote:the site is http://www.chemmovies.unl.edu/chemistry ... D007c.html

I could not get that address to work- it is (I think):
http://chemmovies.unl.edu/chemistry/bec ... BD007.html

Thanks - I would have guessed that all cereal had the ionic iron and so this would not work

I would try a stronger magnet and additional cereal

I would also see if you can find out what kind of iron is in your cereal vs what is in total - I could not find this info online- could you call total ( General Mills)?

All-Bran lists 'iron' as an ingredient- cream of wheat lists 'ferric phosphate': I think you want bleep that says Iron (elemental) over ferric whatever (ionic)

Louise