Antacid Case Study

Independent investigation 2018

What is your question?

1. Which Antacid brand is more effective when neutralizing stomach acid?

Aim: To find which antacid brand helps steady stomach acidity more effectively to relieve heartburn or indigestion.

Variables:

Independent- The antacid brands that have been chosen

Dependent- The pH level of the stomach acid after neutralized by the antacids

Controlled- Amount of hydrochloric acid. pH level of hydrochloric acid. Amount of tablets of each antacid brand.

Hypothesis: If stomach acid is neutralized with differently branded antacids, the Gaviscon tablets will then be more effective because it has more reliable, active ingredients.

Research: what information

Fill up each beaker with 50ml of Hydrochloric acid.

2. Take a small sample of the HCl with a pipette and drop it in two of the dimples in the dimple tray (have the tray so four of the dimples are along the top and three are along the side. Drop the HCl in the top left corner and the next dimple down)

3. With a pH strip, test the acidity of the hydrochloric acid in the second (the dimple under the one in the top left corner) and identify the pH level.

4. Now with the universal indicator, put two drops in the top dimple and once it has changed colour, identify the pH level with the scale.

5. Crush two Gaviscon tablets into a powder with the mortar and pestle and put it in the first beaker. Then crush two Mylanta tablets with mortar and pestle and put into the second beaker. Then crush two Quick Eze tablets and put into the third beaker.

6. Stir each sample with a stirring rod until the powder has dissolved. Make sure the stirring rod is thoroughly cleaned when stirring the different samples.

7. Now with a clean pipette for each antacid, take a sample from the Mylanta mixture and put it in the two dimples of the dimple tray directly next to the HCl samples. Take a sample from the Gaviscon mixture and put it in the next two dimples and finally take a sample of the Quick Eze and put it in the last two dimples next to the Gaviscon

Next is Quick Eze by only a small fraction and then with the average pH level of 2, Mylanta is the worst out of the three antacids. The average stomach acidity is from pH 1.5 to 3.5, but it is best towards the pH of 3.5, which the Gaviscon is antacid is closest to.

During the experiment, there were a few minor errors that occurred. One of the errors included using the same mortar and pestle for crushing each antacid tablet. This could have contaminated the different antacid brands, which may have affected the results from changing the end result of the pH level. Also, another factor that could have affected the results that some of the antacids crushed were not in a very fine powder resulting in the tablets not dissolving

To improve this experiment, different mortar and pestles could be used so the antacids are not contaminated. Also, the antacids could have been crushed finer so they could dissolve easier and quicker in HCl. Another way to make the experiment even more accurate is if all of the solutions in stomach acid was used including Hydrochloric acid, (HCl) Potassium Chloride, (KCl) and Sodium Chloride (NaCl). By mimicking the exact factors and percentages of them the experiment could be even more accurate. HCl alone was used because it makes up most of the stomach