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Red Cabbage Indicator

Make your own red cabbage indicator to test the acidity or alkalinity of certain liquids. Vinegar, Baking soda, Lemon juice, washing soda, laundry detergent, soda pop, alka-seltzer can be used. Orange juice, lemonade, milk, salt, ammonia, soap can also be used as an indicator.

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Bella Mf
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348 views

Red Cabbage Indicator

Make your own red cabbage indicator to test the acidity or alkalinity of certain liquids. Vinegar, Baking soda, Lemon juice, washing soda, laundry detergent, soda pop, alka-seltzer can be used. Orange juice, lemonade, milk, salt, ammonia, soap can also be used as an indicator.

Uploaded by

Bella Mf
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Get ready to make your own red cabbage indicator that will test the acidity or
alkalinity of certain liquids.

Materials
?c {ed cabbage
?c ’lender
?c ©trainer
?c Àlear drinking glasses
?c ×hite paper
?c pron or lab coat (cabbage juice can leave nasty stains!)
?c est chemicals: Vinegar, ’aking soda, Lemon juice, ×ashing soda, Laundry
detergent, ©oda pop, lka-©eltzer
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1.c Geel off six big cabbage leaves and put them in a blender filled half full
with water. Liquify!
2.c Gour the purplish cabbage liquid through a strainer to filter out all of the
big chunks of cabbage. Doesn·t cabbage juice smell great? ©ave the liquid
for the experiments to follow.
3.c ©et out three glasses, side by side against a white piece of paper. Fill each
glass half full with cabbage juice.
4.c ©ince you know that vinegar is an example of an acid, add a little vinegar
to the first glass of cabbage juice. ©tir with a spoon and notice the color
change to red, which indicates that vinegar is classified as an acid.
5.c In the second glass add a teaspoon of washing soda or laundry detergent.
Notice how the liquid turns green, indicating that this chemical is a base.
Keep these two glasses of red and green liquid for future reference.
6.c ry adding each of the other ´test chemicals" to a small amount of
cabbage juice and note the color change to determine if the chemical is an
acid or a base.
Use your cabbage juice indicator to test the acid or base properties of other
common substances. You might want to try orange juice, lemonade, milk, salt,
ammonia, or soap.

ry soaking some filter paper in concentrated cabbage juice. {emove the paper
from the cabbage juice and hang it up by a clothespin to dry. Àut the dried
paper into thin strips. Dip the strips into various liquids to test their pH. he
redder the strip turns, the more acidic the liquid is. he greener the strip turns,
the more basic the liquid is.

How does it work?


©ome substances are classified as either an acid or a base. hink of acids and
bases as opposites - acids have a low pH and bases have a high pH. For
reference, water (a neutral) has a pH of 7 on a scale of 0-14. ©cientists can tell if
a substance is an acid or a base by means of an indicator. n indicator is
typically a chemical that changes color if it comes in contact with an acid or a
base.
s you can see, the purple cabbage juice turns red when it is mixed with
something acidic and turns green when it mixes with something basic. {ed
cabbage juice is considered to be an indicator because it shows us something
about the chemical composition of other substances.

×hat is it about cabbage that causes this to happen? {ed cabbage contains a
water-soluble pigment called anthocyaninthat changes color when it is mixed
with an acid or a base. he pigment turns red in acidic environments with a pH
less than 7 and the pigment turns bluish-green in alkaline (basic) environments
with a pH greater than 7.
{ed cabbage is just one of many indicators that are available to scientists.
©ome indicators start out colorless and turn blue or pink, for example, when
they mix with a base. If there is no color change at all, the substance that you
are testing is probably neutral, just like water.

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