The Vitamin C content of fruit juice

GCSE: Chemistry

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Introduction
We tried to find out how much Vitamin C different fruit juices contain and which one contains the most. Our investigated juices were orange juice, apple juice and grapefruit juice.
Vitamins are organic (carbon containing) molecules that mainly function as catalysts for reactions within the body. If these catalysts are missing normal body functions can break down and make a person susceptible to disease.
A Vitamin C is called an anti-oxidant which is a molecule capable of slowing or preventing the oxidation of other molecules. Oxidation reactions can produce free radicals, which start chain reactions that damage cells. Antioxidants stop these chain reactions by removing free radical, and inhibit other oxidation reactions by being oxidized themselves.
The best source of vitamins which reduce oxidation in your body are fruits, so the aim of our investigation was to find out which type of juice contains the most vitamin C.


Methods
For our investigation we used DC PIP (2,6-dichlorophenolindophenol, which is a blue chemical compound used as a redox dye. Oxidized DC PIP is blue and reduced DC PIP is a pale pink or colourless substance). Is if we mix the particular juice with the DC PIP we can calculate the accurate amount of Vitamin C available in the drink. As the juice gets into the DC PIP, the Vitamin C will reduce the substance which was blue before and if this happens it will turn colourless or pale pink. If the amount of juice needed to turn the DC PIP colourless or pale pink was high then the amount of Vitamin C in the juice was low and the other way round.
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