Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

The research for this electrolyte challenge has been conducted using the kit purchased from this site. The results were obtained using the supplied multimeter at the setting of DVA 200m and are as follows:
Distilled Water:
Gatorade:
Propel
Sporto
Tap Water:
Orange Juice:

Do these look to be within range?
To get the amp do you divide by 1,000,000 or 1,000?
Thanks


[Administrator note: Results removed from post.]

I'm not familiar with this experiment, but looking at your reported results, it appears they are correct relative to one another. That is, distilled water has no electrolytic properties and should be zero. Tap water has some, and is showing some ability to pass current. Orange juice contains sugars and acid which give it great electrolytic properties.

Have you run your experiment carefully and repeated your measurements multiple times? If so, and they are fairly consistent, you should be confident you have the correct values.

The meter you used is measuring in milliamperes. So you should divide the numbers you reported by 1,000 to find the amperes of current.

I have an additional question about this experiment. We tried pickle juice and found the meter jumping all over the place. According to the FAQ's, this is electrolysis. Can this be fixed? Should the initial reading on the meter be used before the bubbles start to form? How do we get an accurate reading when the electrolysis is occuring?

I have the same problem ! I used distilled water, tap water, gatorade, and lemonade. My average currents are as follows ...
ARE THESE ANSWERS REASONABLE ? THEY SEEM WRONG! HELP ME, PLEASE !!!! MY PROJECT IS DUE IN TWO DAYS !!!

and does that mean the gatorade has the most electrolytes ?

[Administrator note: results removed from post.]

hi, so i made this experiment but my sports drinks shows morereading than my orange juice and my fresh squeazed orange juice is something wrong? i used Gatorade

Hello anagchiudl21,

I’m assuming that you are working on the project described at this link:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p053.shtml

I think it’s possible that you could find that a sports drink shows more conductance than orange juice. So, maybe nothing is wrong with your experiment.

The project includes control tests that you can use to find out if your conductance measurement is working. You measured the conductance of distilled water and of tap water. The conductance of distilled water should be lower than the conductance of tap water. The tap water conductance should be lower than the conductance of orange juice or the sports drink. If your results showed this trend then your measurement set-up was probably working correctly.

I hope this helps. Please post again if you have more questions.

A. Norman