Determining the Acetic Acid Concentration in White Vinegar: An At-Home Undergraduate Chemistry Experiment During the COVID-19 Pandemic

28 June 2021, Version 1
This content is a preprint and has not undergone peer review at the time of posting.

Abstract

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many university-level chemistry laboratory experiments transitioned online. This created an educational challenge because students are unable to access reagents and instruments typical in a university lab setting. It is also difficult for students to connect theory to practice since real-lab experimentation is not possible in a virtual online for-mat. In our online Introductory Quantitative Analysis Laboratory course (GW Chem 2123W) in spring 2021, students were required to design and perform an experiment that could be safely conducted at home which can also demonstrate key princi-ples of quantitative analysis. Herein, we conducted a reliable at-home experiment that utilizes university-level acid/base titra-tion techniques to determine the acetic acid concentration in white vinegar. The experiment used sodium bicarbonate in the form of baking soda to titrate the Whole Foods white vinegar which is advertised to contain 6% of acetic acid. We reliably obtained an equivalence point for the titration from which the actual concentration of acetic acid in the vinegar was calculated with error analysis to be 19% higher than the advertised value. The analytical techniques demonstrated in this experiment supplement practical knowledge of acid/base techniques learned in the online classroom and prompt adoption of this meth-odology in online laboratory curriculum. This experiment can also be readily applied to measure other acidic solutions such as vinegar and juice for at-home experiment

Supplementary weblinks

Comments

Comments are not moderated before they are posted, but they can be removed by the site moderators if they are found to be in contravention of our Commenting Policy [opens in a new tab] - please read this policy before you post. Comments should be used for scholarly discussion of the content in question. You can find more information about how to use the commenting feature here [opens in a new tab] .
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy [opens in a new tab] and Terms of Service [opens in a new tab] apply.