Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

So far i've basically only come up with my problem statement... I'm having trouble coming up with my hypothesis statement. I've determined that my problem statement will be "How does the shape of a pain reliever affect the rate at which it dissolves in the stomach?"

Thank you for any help you can offer!
Emalie

Hi,

Welcome to Science Buddies! This is a very interesting topic for a science fair project. I think the problem that you are having is that pills are made in round, oval or flat disc shapes and the shape is probably designed for ease of consumption and ease of manufacturing, not necessarily for rate of dissolution. It seems to me that the rate of dissolution would depend on the surface area, so perhaps you could calculate the surface area of each shape (using the same volume of pill) and perhaps hypothesize that the pill with the highest surface area ratio to volume would dissolve fastest. Have you tried to find any background articles from the scientific literature that would provide more information on this topic? Perhaps there are other factors other than pill shape that would affect the rate of dissolution that you could also investigate.

Here is a project that is an experiment on pill shape and rate of dissolution using gelatin that you could consider. The experiment is controlled nicely because all of the “pills” are made from the same material and you could control the shapes.

http://www.science-house.org/index.php/ ... l-delivery

It sounds like you are planning ahead and trying to get your project done well ahead of time. The pill dissolving project is a good, basic project and you will be able to complete it in a fairly short amount of time. However, since you are in 9th grade, and are obviously planning ahead, I would encourage you to look through the projects on the Science Buddies project guide and consider something more challenging. With the time you have available, you could try to do something completely original, maybe with prize winning potential. Here is a list of chemistry projects, for example.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... hp?ia=Chem

Why are you interested in the tablet dissolution project? What is your objective for your science fair project?


Donna Hardy